


Bad dreams are always the longest ones

by DetroitBabe



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetroitBabe/pseuds/DetroitBabe
Summary: Snippets of conversations from the surreal nightmare of the Blue Rose office, from Albert's point of view.
Relationships: Albert Rosenfield & Diane Evans, Dale Cooper/Albert Rosenfield, Gordon Cole & Albert Rosenfield, Phillip Jeffries & Albert Rosenfield
Comments: 41
Kudos: 48





	1. A suit of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Aight, here's another Blue Rose fic. Still inhabiting the same universe as my previous ones (except that Violets Are Red, Roses Are Blue was a bit of a warm-up and some concepts slightly changed since), and I will definitely hint at previous headcanons - I do think of it as a companion piece to Zitterbewegung, only from Albert's perspective - but it's a standalone work too, and you don't need to read my earlier stuff if you don't wanna.  
> Tags might expand in the future, and I will be providing warnings and such in chapter notes as needs arise; it's not yet finished and I will be updating as I write it, which I'm sure will be a fun and not frustrating experience for the both of us!  
> So, chapter one: on heartless men and bad impressions. No warnings apply.

i.

One cold and dark afternoon Albert fell into a dream.

Only he’s never fancied himself much of a dreamer. He was a practical, rational man, feet firmly planted on the ground and head well below the clouds, where it should be; this kind of fairytale beginning to his story probably wouldn’t sit too well with him. Still, the facts were irrefutable, and they were these:

On the 13th of November, 1974, special agent Albert Rosenfield fell into a dream. Like most average dreams of most average people, it wasn’t immediately recognizable as one. It began innocuously, indistinguishable from reality, for a while nothing more than a dull echo of daily life: a dream about work.

“You gotta watch your heart, man.”

Albert blinked, his tired brain grinding slowly. It caught him off guard, the insolence of unsolicited health advice. At this time of day, which was almost nighttime, Albert was not taking suggestions. He turned away from the coffee machine to face down the offender, one of the lab techs.

“I’m just sayin’,” the man shrugged, stepping back, “this is... how many cups today?”

“None of your business,” Albert growled. It wasn’t even like he _needed_ advice. He generally thought he was keeping in a good shape, and at present he had only three vices: the occasional cigarette, something he periodically but as of yet unsuccessfully attempted to quit, the occasional drink, which wasn’t so bad, and yes, the occasional coffee binge, but only if the job demanded it. He didn’t need advice, he needed some time off; and yet, the unstoppable force of his sleepiness met the immovable object of his stubbornness. He wasn’t going home until he was done, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t do his work on his own. It wasn’t like any of the assistants could be of any real assistance anyway.

“Go home, Greg,” he said firmly. “It’s past your bedtime.”

Albert was only about eight months older, but he has already learned that his attitude gave him a certain air of seniority, which he cultivated with pride. Something about respect, and so on. Something about avoiding coffee machine chit-chat, too. With his colleague writing him off as a hopeless case, Albert returned to the lab, satisfied, sipping the bitter bottom-of-the-pot sludge. Its smell mingled with the smell of disinfectant hanging over the place, and it smelled almost like home to someone used to spending more time at work than his own house.

It must have been the tiredness, the throbbing beginnings of a headache, that made him so hyper-aware of all the background noises and sensations of that evening: the buzzing of the lights, the whirring of the air-con, the hums and clicks of the tape recorder, even the cold feel of steel between his fingers, through the latex sticking to his sweating palms. His brain lagged, focusing on all the wrong things, derailing his thoughts. He took a deep breath, collected himself and kept talking, hoping to make sense of his notes later.

“...what’s unusual is, the blood appears to not have fully coagulated yet, even though the temperature and _rigor mortis_ would have suggested otherwise. I am now cutting the sternum…”

“...the lungs display dark brown spots, damage to the alveoli, I’d say a heavy smoker…”

“...now, the heart…”

His head spinning, he grabbed the edge of the table for support. Damn it, what was wrong with him? But the --

“...the heart…”

“...the heart is…”

_Click._

_“...caucasian male, over 50 years old by the look of him, hair short, grey, eyes brown…”_

_Click._

_“...gunshot wound to the parietal bone, just over the occiput, exit through the left eye. No visible injuries to the torso or limbs...”_

_Click. The recorder whirred as the tape spun backwards._

_“...no visible injuries to the torso or limbs...”_

_Click. Whirr._

_“...no visible injuries to the torso or limbs. Minimal lividity in...”_

_Click._

ii.

He slumped off to one side of the chair, and the jolt woke him up. He has been dreaming, and for a few seconds he tried to focus on recalling what the dream was about. There was an old woman, and a man in a blood-red suit; and something else, but it was slipping away from him, lost even before he realized he didn’t actually care. Only a sensation lingered, a feeling of… uncleanness, but it might’ve been just his sweaty, crumpled shirt, the sour dryness in his mouth and the lie rooting itself in his head.

He was going to lie. He had to. He couldn’t tell the truth because he had no idea what the truth was, he didn’t have an answer, and what he knew wasn’t going to cut it.

The recorder sat on the table in front of him, a witness who could speak up at any moment. Here I am, Albert thought, so damn principled I’m already thinking like a criminal, even though I’ve done nothing wrong. Or did he? Doubt began to set in. Is it possible he has overlooked something, made some stupid mistake he would laugh about tomorrow? Must’ve been. He was so tired, after all. It appeared more and more plausible to him. That’s what he had to do - admit to an idiotic fault that will probably earn him reprimands and ridicule, but at least won’t cast a suspicion on his sanity. Yeah, that seemed right. He got up with a sigh and padded to the shower, and then finally went to bed.

He woke up early from another uneasy dream he couldn’t recall; no less tired than the day before, he would’ve gladly caught more sleep, but half an hour of tossing and turning later he knew all attempts were futile. With a heavy feeling in his stomach, he forced himself to have a little more for breakfast than just coffee and an aspirin, and drove to work in a funereal mood.

The morgue was rarely quiet. It might sound odd, but it was true. Especially the younger staff tended to feel disconcerted by the, pardon the pun, dead stillness of the place; and so there was often talking or a radio left playing in an office next door, or failing that, at least the noise of footsteps on the tiled floors, clinking of tools, sometimes louder than necessary. At this hour, though, Albert was there alone, and every sound he made echoed unpleasantly in the silence; once again, he caught himself feeling as if he was doing something he shouldn’t.

He was sitting at his desk, fingers hovering over the keys of his old typewriter, poised, waiting for the words to come. The words weren’t coming, at least not how Albert would want them. He tried to go over the facts again. He had looked over the body again, carefully and thoroughly, and found no wounds other than the gunshot to the head, and of course the incision left by his earlier examination. He had made it himself, and to miss a chest having already been cut open before was unthinkable, plainly impossible.

And yet, the dead man’s heart was missing.

The medical waste bin hasn’t been disposed of yet, but he wasn’t going to go through it. He just clung to it as an only possible explanation. Like when you’re tired and absent-minded, and you throw out the spoon instead of the coffee grounds. It would have eased his mind to check. He didn’t admit to himself that he was afraid of not finding it there. That would have been irrational, after all. Albert Rosenfield was a rational man.

A few hours later his supervisor came in, asking how did the autopsy go, and saying he damn well hoped the report would follow quick because he needed it pronto, with the annual evaluation coming soon, and he would like this case wrapped up if Albert thinks he could manage that. The tone of his voice didn’t sit with Albert too well; under the circumstances, he didn’t feel like admitting to a fault after all, and instead patiently explained that with the resources at hand he might not able to get the results that are expected of him, and it could hardly be held against him. No… irregularities were mentioned, but the blank spaces in Albert’s report, together with his nervousness, added to the tension. There was a discussion, and it ended with the older man insulting Albert’s intelligence and competence, or maybe the other way around; either way, pissed off as he was, Albert kept his cool, and his boss very much did not. And then Albert was alone in his office once again, back to the report, but contemplating the future instead. From the tips of his idle fingers a cold, numb sensation began, and spread through his body, snuffing out the residual heat of anger, until it reached his mind and blossomed into a grim certainty that this will all end badly.

iii.

When with the new year an offer of a transfer appeared, he was sure that it was no coincidence, and that it was going to be awful. A punishment, a demotion thinly veiled as a choice, but he’d be damned if he let himself be coerced into it. He made a choice, and travelled to Philadelphia for his interview with a sense of sullen pride, holding his head up high as he was going down. Suffice it to say, the enthusiasm with which he was greeted blindsided him completely. He suspected that it was either a facade, or that he found himself in a department of similar rejects, who were probably thrilled to have a professional working for them.

He was wrong on about one and a half of those accounts.

There would have been a sense of a fate being sealed, perhaps, had he been a man prone to such premonitions. But he wasn’t, and so, when he faced Gordon Cole in the sparsely but tastelessly decorated room on the second floor of the regional FBI headquarters in Philadelphia, Albert’s concerns were entirely immediate and of this world, even as the strange dream formed and solidified around him.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” Gordon said, and ushered Albert through a door to his side. He said it with a ridiculous air of secrecy mixed with glee, and Albert began to half-expect a surprise party; but no one jumped at him with confetti and streamers. There appeared to be a clown, but at first he didn’t even bother looking up at them.

The clown was a sitting at a desk with his red leather shoes stacked on top of it, and was dressed in the ugliest suit Albert has ever seen. A number of folders and papers were strewn across the desk and the man’s lap, but he was fully engrossed in some crumpled magazine. Gordon coughed pointedly and the man finally glanced up at him, and stood to attention with no signs of embarrassment.

“Special agent Phillip Jeffries,” Gordon introduced him, beaming. “Jeffries, this is Albert Rosenfield.”

“I know.” Special agent Phillip Jeffries grinned like the Cheshire cat at a dentist’s appointment. “Nice to meet ya.” He looked at Albert too keenly, almost as if he was trying to exert some sort of telekinetic power over him, and Albert shifted his weight, a little uncomfortable. He felt his sanity slipping away from him like a wet bar of soap in a bath with every second of this staring contest, so he forfeited it and blinked first, and put out a hand to shake.

The interview was short, and gave Albert a feeling that a decision has already been made. He was complimented on the good marks with which he graduated the academy last year, and received sympathy - no reprimands or unpleasant questions, _sympathy_ \- over the several altercations with his superiors, which apparently have made their way into his records after all. He was wanted and warmly welcomed, with a little between-the-lines reminder of how poor the alternatives looked, if he was reading the room correctly. It was a bit hard, at times; the Director was overtly stiff and formal, agent Cole seemed to have a knack for saying much and nothing at once, and agent Jeffries didn’t say a word throughout, only nodded his head a couple of times.

After that, Albert only needed a visit with some terminally nervous man from HR, who babbled something about circumventing proper procedures, but Gordon patted him amiably on the back and told him not to worry, which seemed to worry the poor guy a lot, and then he was officially welcomed into the fold.

iv.

It was quite late by the time Albert got back home, but he couldn’t sleep, so he showered and changed the gray suit for a pair of jeans and his weathered leather jacket, and went out into town. It seemed that only when the red neon flashed in his eyes he has realized where his steps led him, out of an unthinking old habit. He hesitated for a moment, but went downstairs, brushing past a young couple huddled in a dark nook of the corridor. He sat down at the end of the bar, and ordered a beer from a guy he didn’t recognize. Soon enough, though, a familiar note reached his ear over the low thud of the music.

“My, my, what is the occasion?”

He looked up, and the look on his face, seen in the mirror behind the bar shelves - kind of anxious, and not at all celebratory - punctuated the gentle sarcasm in the bartender’s voice. Albert hasn’t been down here for a while - coming more rarely ever since he caused the man, Carlos, his name was, to break his rule about going out with clients, and felt a little awkward afterwards.

“We missed you, you know,” Carlos droned sweetly.

“You’ll miss me some more,” Albert said. It came out more surly than he intended; he’s been so on edge lately, he felt like he forgot how to relax or take a joke. He gave Carlos an apologetic half-smile. “I...think I got a new job. In Philly.”

“Leaving us behind?” Carlos put on a theatrically wounded look. “You are without a heart.” Albert winced, and drained his glass in one go. As soon as he did, a shot of tequila appeared before him.

“Well, congratulations, darling. Now, what should we drink to? The past or the future?”

“The future,” Albert decided.

“To the future, then.”

The drink went down like fire, but it didn't burn out that cold something deep in Albert's gut.


	2. Third wheel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On secrets and premonitions. On murder, too, but nothing graphic.
> 
> The headcanon that Lil's dance evolved from a code developed between Gordon and Phil in the early days belongs to [babe_without_the_arms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babe_without_the_arms/pseuds/babe_without_the_arms).

i.

There were moments when he snatched a brief, contextless glimpse of something he wasn’t meant to see or hear. It was a part of the job, the part that was probably the most unavoidable and the most avoided. Honestly, they should teach it at Quantico, that tightrope balancing act of doublethink where you had to maintain a careful equilibrium between the kind of reflexive nosiness which comes with a detective’s work and the self-preserving habit of sticking to your own business. But everybody had to learn it for themselves, and Albert’s way of keeping out of as much of administrative work and Bureau politics as he possibly could was primarily based on spending most of his time in the lab. Unfortunately, though, he had to leave his room sometimes.

_“What do you think of him?”_

_“He’s good. I like him.”_

_There was a silent pause, as they both considered something; eventually Gordon spoke up again._

_“Should we tell him?”_

_Jeffries thought about it, playing idly with a pen from Gordon’s desk. “No,” he said eventually. “Not yet, at least. I don’t think he would like it.”_

_“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Gordon remarked. Phillip shook his head._

_“I want him to feel good here, okay? I don’t wanna work with someone who’ll just be lookin’ for an opportunity to jump ship. And we know he doesn’t have the same... motivation to stay as I do,” he added with a half-smile._

Albert has already learned another thing, too: how to recognize the silence that falls when you walk into a room and what was about to be said wasn’t meant for your ears. Here, it could just as well be a matter of security clearances or office gossip; the two kinds of silence were difficult to distinguish. Either way, that was a part of the job, too, and he had to accept it.

ii.

The Monday briefings were a ritual, with coffee from smiling but dead-eyed secretaries, polite but stern reminders of overdue paperwork, and brief discussions of recent progresses, mostly for the benefit of directorial approval; in Albert’s opinion, they were invariably a waste of everybody’s time. Anything important enough that it couldn’t wait a few days called for an emergency meeting, anyway.

The emergency meetings followed no rules.

Albert entered the conference room to see Jeffries sitting on the edge of the long table, absent-mindedly snapping his fingers and tapping his foot to a rhythm playing only in his head. That wasn’t the most noteworthy thing, though. The most noteworthy thing was that he wore red. A suit of deep red velvet, or something cheaper, like velour; a wide-collared purple shirt; his red leather shoes, wearing off into pink on the toes. This seemed to make an impression even on Gordon, who never before batted an eye at Jeffries’ lax approach to dress code; this time, he stopped in the door, staring at Jeffries with a deep frown on his face.

“What have you got for us, Phil?” he asked, sitting down next to Albert. He looked anxious. Jeffries slid off the table, and put down the file he’s been reading.

“Homicide,” he said. Albert glanced around. It seemed that only he and Gordon got the memo; that was odd. Surely, the others should be here as well?

He watched as Phil swayed over towards them, hands in his pockets. Gordon was observing him keenly. He nodded along as Phil ran them through the basic dry facts of the case. But it seemed like his attention was focused on something else, too, and after a moment Albert thought he began to see it. Odd gestures and dance-steps, a little more mechanical and artificial than Phil’s usual flourishes. A wink, a goddamn wink, this was quickly going for the top place among the most surreal and ridiculous experiences of Albert’s life, all the while he wondered if perhaps he wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, but he wouldn’t put anything past these clowns. It was a little bit like he imagined having a stroke must feel. He felt an urge welling up in him, like a sneeze, and he knew he was going to say something that will be considered rude.

“I’m sorry,” he said with the air of painful resignation, “would you mind going over that last bit again? I’m afraid they stopped giving mime classes at Quantico by my time.”

To his surprise, there wasn’t even a stern glance; instead, Jeffries did something far more infuriating: he smiled apologetically.

“There's more to all this than meets the eye,” he said, a non-answer.

Only later, as he was getting up to leave, Albert felt a hand on his shoulder, and locked eyes with a stare so ernest it must have been fake.

“Albert, wait. Do you trust me?”

“No,” Albert replied, truthfully. He always regarded himself as an honest man. Jeffries nodded appreciatively.

“Good.” He paused. He tended to talk like that, sometimes, like a chess player carefully considering his next move, except without the clock limit. It was either that or monologuing.

“There are many things I haven’t told you yet,” he said eventually. “Remember that.”

You won’t let me forget it, Albert thought, but kept the observation to himself.

iii.

They flew over to Harrisburg in an atmosphere of quiet tension, to meet up with the local authorities and take over the case - a move invariably met with either hostility or relief, and it was always hard to guess which one will it be this time. Jeffries seemed pensive, Gordon antsy, and there was a friction in the air between them that made Albert’s hair rise up with static. He stared hard out of the window, watching the city roll away under them. It wasn’t going to be a long flight, thankfully.

“Let’s go over the basics one last time,” Gordon proposed, breaking the silence. Jeffries looked up from the apparently fascinating landscape of his fingernails, and started reciting from memory, in a slow, mechanical voice.

“The victim is Roger Holloway, fifty-six years old, unemployed, no family. Found three days ago by a pair of hikers on a nature trail along the Susquehanna River. Cause of death determined to be asphyxia, classic strangulation marks on the throat. No signs of struggle, they suspect he might have been drugged, we’re waitin' for the toxicology report. The people who found the body also reported seein' a woman headin' away from the scene of crime; description matches one Lois Duffy, as corroborated by fingerprint evidence. She lived in Sunbury, but travelled frequently in the recent months, accordin' to her neighbors. Her current whereabouts are unknown, the police are searchin'. She didn’t seem to make an effort to cover her tracks, though, so that’s promising. We're steppin' in 'cause we have reasons to believe she is connected to a cold case under the Bureau’s investigation, which is classified.” He paused. “She was in the Book, so to speak.”

Gordon cut in before Albert could even think of asking a question. “Thank you, Phil. Albert, I would like you to look over the scene again. And talk to the forensics and the coroner, let them walk you through everything they found, see if they haven’t missed anything. Phil, you talk to those hikers. I will take care of things with the sheriff -”

“Johnson,” Phil offered helpfully.

“- sheriff Johnson. I am sure we’ll have his full cooperation.”

Sheriff Johnson was a huge man, tall and burly; Gordon came up to about the tips of his moustache, but still attempted to stare him down as they talked. He drove them as far as he could, until they arrived at a parking spot deep in the forest.

“We’ll need to go on foot from here,” he said. Albert opened the car door and got out into the shallow, squelching mud, and made a face. It wasn’t the first outdoors crime scene he’s been to, but he still wasn’t a fan. At least he was sensible enough to not wear his best shoes.

They walked on along a wide, rocky path until they came to a clearing, guarded by yellow police tape, flapping on the wind, and a lone deputy, visibly bored out of his mind. Beyond that, it really looked quite picturesque: the mountain range rising up from behind the woods, and immediately in front of them a stretch of grass with a solitary tree in the centre of it, a wooden bench and picnic table in its shade. The body was long gone, of course; there was nothing that could have warranted the look on Phil’s face.

“What’s the matter?” Albert hissed. His colleague stood swaying slightly, like a tree on a breeze, pale and feeble.

“It’s nothin’,” he muttered, jaw clenched. He swallowed hard and blinked slowly. “Just... felt a little lightheaded for a moment. I’m fine.”

Albert made no comment besides raising an eyebrow.

They walked closer to the central spot, taking a long way around, careful not to tread over any tracks. It was one of the cleanest crime scenes Albert has ever been to; with the body gone, it hardly looked as if anything had happened there. There weren’t even traces of the usual frantic attempt to tidy up. There was a stain on the table, which just as well could’ve been the remains of somebody’s drink - and maybe it was, the lab report will tell - and some kicked up soil underneath, which wasn’t much. They made sure the local officers didn’t overlook anything, but it was a formality. The witnesses’ statement was probably the best lead they had.

Albert followed Jeffries to the lawn outside the sheriff’s office. Phillip fished a packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket and offered it to him.

“I’m trying to quit,” Albert declined.

“Suit yourself,” Jeffries said with a shrug, and took one out with his teeth.

“I haven’t quit yet,” Albert capitulated, reaching out a hand. He saw Jeffries smile for the first time in what felt like days, and decided to take the chance.

“So, what was all that about?”

“All _what_?” Jeffries asked, distracted, or just playing innocent. Albert sighed.

“Hm, your nearly fainting back in the forest? Avoiding Gordon ever since?”

“All _that,_ huh.”

“I’m not your therapist, Phil. Or your boss. But I might tell you when you’re being ridiculous.”

Jeffries grimaced. “Yeah, okay, I get it.” He paused, leaning against the wall of the building, eyes closed. “Gordon’s been weird lately.”

“Only lately?”

“Hah… No, I mean, worse than usual. Keeps sayin’ somethin’ bad’s goin’ to happen, it’s all bullshit to me, but…it must be gettin’ to me, ‘cause I could swear I’m beginnin’ to feel it too, and I --” he shook his head. “You’re gonna laugh.”

“No,” Albert protested, without much conviction. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout,” Jeffries sniggered.

“Damn right I wasn’t. Can you imagine?”

“Has Gordon ever asked you about your dreams?”

“He did, actually,” Albert answered with a moment's delay, surprised by the sudden turn in the conversation.

“Well, you’re not the only one. If you want my advice, don’t tell him nothin’.” Jeffries fell silent again.

“You’re getting somewhere with this?”

“Three nights in a row, I dreamt I got shot. I’m not superstitious, Albert. And I don’t care what it’s supposed to mean. It just feels awful, and I wake up terrified.”

“Ever been shot? For real, I mean?”

“No. Got stabbed, once. Here,” Jeffries said, casually, pointing under his ribs.

“Okay,” Albert muttered. As far as small talk went, this wasn’t the best.

“Could you smell it?” Jeffries asked, after a pause. “Back at the scene. Somethin’ like… dunno, burnt plastic?”

Albert frowned. “Not really, no.”

“Thought so,” Jeffries said, without explaining anything. He dropped the cigarette butt on the pavement, stubbed it out with his heel and headed for the door.

iv.

The tension was putting Albert on edge, too. Cole and Jeffries seemed to have a miscommunication - _no, that’s not right._ They might’ve had a difference of opinion, but never a miscommunication. They seemed to communicate all the time, telepathically, eerily synchronised. They’d share a glance and it would be enough for them. But they were having a difference of opinion, all right. Albert couldn’t help hearing it; he came upstairs about his last report, wanted to leave a memo for Gordon, he thought everybody would be gone by now, it was late, but the light was still on in Gordon’s office, and the door hasn’t been closed properly - clearly they thought they would be alone as well. Albert stood quiet in the corridor outside, listening despite himself.

“Gordon, please. We’ve talked about this -”

“Something bad’s going to happen, I know it.”

“For Christ’s sake, I can handle myself, you know.”

“Remember the tactical -”

“You’re gonna bring up the tactical exam every single time I’m makin' a decision?”

“All I’m saying is, if that was happening for real -”

“Oh, like you never made a bad call. Who saved your ass on the Eggleston case? If I wasn’t there you’d be fuckin' dead, Gordon. How about that?”

Albert winced, stepped back quietly, and then just turned around and left.


	3. Signs and portents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On electricity and roses. Content warnings for suicide (as per canon) and one mildly gross scene of throwing up.
> 
> I just love Phillip Jeffries too damn much, and can't stop putting him into everything I write; but then, he won't be here forever! Just for now. Bear with me.
> 
> Another thing I wanted to say is, the rough sketches I've had for this fic were working-titled "Conversations", so yes, it's going to be all dialogue all the way through.

i.

The news broke first thing in the morning. Albert was at his desk when Jeffries stormed in, visibly agitated and a little out of breath.

“You’re in early,” Albert commented, looking up from his notes.

“She’s dead,” Phil replied, dropping heavily on the nearest chair.

“Who?”

“Duffy. Tore her shirt into ribbons and hanged herself. A few hours ago, they think.”

“They  _ think? _ Was nobody watching her? Aren’t there cameras?”

Phil got back up on his feet, and circled Albert’s desk, drumming his fingers on it, until he appeared to have reached a decision.

“Come with me,” he said.

“When did you last see her alive?”

The guard shifted his weight, nervously.

“I came down to do my rounds at midnight, as usual. She wasn’t sleeping, she was just… standing there. By the door.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“Yeah, it was a bit… weird.”

Phil inched closer to the man. “Exact words,” he said, his voice ice cold.

“Yeah, hang on, she said… she said she didn’t kill nobody. Nobody real. She kept repeating it, then looked at me and said, “the other one wasn’t real.” Something like that, yes.”

Phil nodded. “The cameras?”

The guard scratched his head.

“You better see for yourselves,” he said.

Lois Duffy sat on the edge of the bed in her cell, staring blankly ahead, as minutes ticked by in the corner of the screen. Every now and then, a ripple of static passed through the image. Phil observed it keenly. Behind him, Albert stood with his arms folded, shooting sideways glances at the security guard, who by now was sweating profusely. Lois Duffy still didn’t budge, but the recording showed minute movements: a shift, a slight turn of the head, wringing of hands; without them, it would’ve seemed stuck on a single frame.

“It’s looped,” Phil said after a while, breaking the silence. “Look.”

Albert moved closer to the screen, and saw that Jeffries was right. The clock went on, but the recording was the same three minutes on repeat; it wasn’t easy to spot until you knew to look for it, and then it was obvious. The clock now showed three a.m. The image rippled again, for a second becoming an abstract pattern of white lines and black squares. When it stabilized, Lois Duffy was dead, hanging from the window bars. Albert stepped back with a start, and swore under his breath.

“The lights went out as the other one died,” Phillip whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. “Electricity. Interference. Interesting.”

ii.

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Explain, please.”

“I’m not sure if I should, actually.”

Albert was rapidly approaching the end of his modest reserves of patience.

“How am I supposed to work with you if you don’t tell me half the things --”

“Albert. Albert,” Phillip cut in, putting a hand on Albert’s chest. There was a sense of quiet desperation to him, he looked as exhausted as a sleep-deprived corpse; Albert couldn’t help feeling something like a pang of sympathy.

This case, this whole thing, was a test of sorts; Phillip wondered if Albert was aware of that. The test should be tough, but Gordon wasn’t here and Phillip was tired and, although he would never admit it, alone, painfully, terrifyingly alone against it all, and so he made up his mind; the test has been passed.

“Do you remember - we were talkin’ about dreams, back in Sunbury?”

“I hate to break it to you, Phil, but when you get all mystical, people usually stop listening,” Albert countered. Phillip never took offence to a joke, and he wasn’t angry now, but he remained dead serious.

“Well, I want you to listen to me now,” he said. 

“Alright, I’m all ears.”

“Have you ever heard of Blue Book?”

Albert frowned.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Phil said, shaking his head slowly. “Project Sign? Grudge?”

“Um, no.”

“But you have heard of Roswell.” It wasn’t a question. Albert scoffed.

“You don’t mean…?”

Phil ran a hand through his hair. “Gordon knows a guy. Military. Air Force. Never met him, and God knows how they got to know each other - Gordon never told me. But this guy, he was there. At Roswell. And ever since, he’s been runnin’ an… investigation.”

Albert leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly, incredulously.

“Into what? Aliens? Seriously?”

“UFOs, unexplained phenomena, what have you. Until someone up above decides that there’s no such thing as magic and aliens probably definitely don’t exist, and pulls the plug on the whole thing. Except there are people who still think it’s worthwhile, so it goes on. Unofficially. And Gordon gets a call. And we work as normal. Only sometimes we get another call. People and places to check out. Cold cases. You get the idea.” Albert nodded, abstaining from voicing how ridiculous the whole story sounded.

“And you got a call about Lois Duffy,” he said. At this point, it wasn’t a hard guess.

“They had an old file on her. From way back, when she was a kid. Went on a trip with her father and disappeared for a few days, claimed that she was… taken somewhere. To a world that was all black and white, like on TV. There, she met a man and a woman, who were taller than normal people, and black and white too. They showed her the stars and the Earth up in the sky; she told the police that she had thought she was on the moon. There was no evidence of an actual kidnapping attempt, so everybody assumed she just got lost in the woods, and imagined things. But her story corroborated a few older testimonies, and so Lois Duffy became one of the last persons of interest for Project Sign.”

“You know, I’m not sure I’ve wanted to hear it,” Albert admitted after a pause. He didn’t believe in little grey men, or large ones, for that matter. But he did believe in powerful people who would give other people trouble for whatever bullshit they were on, because he worked for the damn FBI. And this little fairytale smelled of bullshit and trouble from a mile off.

“Well, you’ve heard it, so there’s that.” Phil wasn’t relenting, but neither was Albert.

“Is there any chance we can pretend we’ve never had this conversation?”

“There’ll be an NDA waiting on your desk, of course.”

“Not what I meant.”

“I know,” Phil said solemnly. “I’m sorry.” Weirdest thing, he genuinely seemed so.

“There’s one last thing I can’t figure out, though,” Albert mused. “You don’t look too happy with this either. Why are  _ you _ here?”

Phil’s steely glare was so sharp you could cut yourself on it, and it left no room for further questions.

“Let’s just say I owed Gordon one,” he said.

iii.

Suddenly, Albert had to get used to a lot more field work. With Gordon still on sick leave - after an incident at Lois Duffy’s arrest that Jeffries still couldn’t, or didn’t want to, say much about - and the recent revelations, Phil seemingly deemed Albert his replacement as a partner. And that involved travelling with Phil to consult on his cases. Officially, of course, still in the capacity of forensic expert; but mainly, so it appeared, as someone to have a chat with, bounce ideas off of, and occasionally, as someone to provide a much-needed reality check. As he started to say, only half-joking, he should have “ground control” written on his badge; consigned to the job of bringing his colleagues down to earth.

“Remind me again, why exactly can’t we fly?” he grumbled, looking with thinly veiled distaste at Phil’s mint green Chevrolet; a monster of a car, its long, sharp lines and hideous coat colour perfectly matching its owner.

“We can, but I like to drive. Helps me think.”

“You’re delaying,” Albert pronounced his verdict. Phil offered no comment on that, and got in the car without looking Albert in the eye.

They were in for a long haul, all the way to Kentucky, but apparently time wasn’t so much of the essence that they couldn’t spend a day on the road. The case was a series of killings across multiple state lines, and as far as Albert knew, there was nothing unusual about it; that is, no Blue Book connection, just another Jack the Ripper wannabe carving people up, without the involvement of aliens, the Devil or whatever the hell Phil was looking for. A good, honest murder mystery with no elements of science-fiction.  _ When did he become so bitter? _

A few hours in they had lunch in some roadside diner, where the coffee resembled tar, and Albert had to witness Phil eat the most disgusting looking Hot Brown sandwich he’s ever seen, topped with peaches from a can; it was disturbing enough to rival the crime scene photos he had been looking through during their journey. They talked about the case, and then they talked about books and music and whatnot and swapped little anecdotes to think about something else. They talked about religions and beliefs, which Albert was a little less than comfortable with. They listened to news reports on the car radio, which mentioned the murders, bringing their minds back to work stuff, and they fell quiet again. At some point, a truck overtook them at high speed, horns blaring, forcing Phil to swerve; a flock of birds, sitting on a nearby electrical pylon, flew into the air. Phil observed them out of the corner of his eye with the attention of an ancient augur, but as far as Albert was concerned, they yielded no fortune. The pylons were along the road now, towering over the fields. They looked too large there, out of proportion, over the low, flat landscape.

The sun was going down red and big. The voice on the radio droned on patchy, bursts of static cutting off ends of sentences. Albert leaned in and started fiddling with the dial, in a futile attempt to adjust the frequency; it skipped between Bible verses, old songs and white noise. He looked up at Phil to ask if he should turn it off altogether, and saw that his hands were white-knuckled around the steering wheel, and his jaw similarly clenched, all colour drained from his face.

“Are you okay, Phil?”

Phil stared dead ahead, breathing shallow. Suddenly, his eyes flicked to the side, and he took a sharp turn into an empty country road, throwing Albert back and then forwards with the momentum. The car skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust.

“What the hell, Jeffries?!”

Phil threw the door on his side open, and doubled over, hanging half-out by his seatbelt. Albert grimaced at the unmistakable sound of vomiting, and the vile smell.

“Geez, Phil. The lunch didn’t agree with you? Told you not to eat that shit.”

Phil retched violently like he was going to spit out his insides. Coughing, he fished under the seat and pulled out a warm can of coke, and washed his mouth out with it, spitting it on the ground. He fell back into his seat heavily, throwing his head back, with tears in the corners of his eyes and spittle in the corners of his mouth.

“Tore open,” he mumbled, panting. “Tore open.” He felt Albert’s hand on his shoulder, felt his irritation giving way to concern, and blinked slowly a couple of times, as if trying to readjust his vision to the world in front of him. He lit a cigarette and took a few deep drags, his breath steadying. His hands were still trembling. Albert got out of the car, and leaned on it, rubbing his temples against the beginnings of a headache. The wind rustled in the cornfields, the sunset coloring them salmon pink. Albert sighed.

“Let’s swap, okay? I’ll drive, you get some rest.” He didn’t ask what happened. He was absolutely, completely certain he wouldn’t like the answer. Surprisingly enough, Phil didn’t protest. In the passenger seat, he eventually drifted off to sleep, muttering indistinctly to himself.

The next morning after they arrived, there was a new body in the morgue, slashed and torn savagely. A certain escalation from the previous one, but they were still fairly certain it was the same perpetrator. Albert was too busy with work to pay special attention to Phil, whose grim-faced expression was unreadable anyway; he did note the stiff drink after they went back to their motel, though, and that when he was falling asleep, Phil was still awake, sitting out on the balcony.

iv.

There was no party when Gordon finally came back, but the welcome was warm nonetheless, at least on Albert’s part; he felt a deep sense of relief that he has not suspected himself of. It was just a nice prospect, to deal with someone other than Phil for a change. 

Gordon walked into the office shadowed by someone Albert hasn’t seen before: a woman with a shock of hair like coiled copper wire, dressed in rust-coloured velvet. Her smile was much stiffer than her posture, and she seemed to look down on Gordon from behind, thanks to a pair of elegant but impossibly high platform heels.

“DIANE, MEET AGENT JEFFRIES, AND AGENT ROSENFIELD,” Gordon squawked, his high-pitched voice louder and more grating now. “PHIL, ALBERT, THIS IS DIANE. MY SECRETARY.”

“Charmed,” Diane said, shaking their hands with a surprisingly strong grip.

She wore a white pantsuit, and her copper hair has turned to verdigris, as did her nails. There was a bouquet of fresh roses on her desk, white and cream, in a tall glass vase. She was definitely classing the place up.

“Is Gordon in?”

“Not at the moment, no. He’s at a meeting upstairs.” Diane paused, squinting at the man in the door, before pointing at him with a pencil, a small expression of triumph on her face. “Agent Rosenfield, yes?”

“Albert.”

“Albert,” she repeated, and smiled wickedly. Yes, the name definitely rang familiar. “The guys from accounting hate you.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“No, no, no,” Diane cut short Albert’s half-hearted apologies, “that’s good. Fuck them.” With a gesture, she invited him to come inside. “Want some coffee? Help yourself to it,” she said, waving towards a tray with with a steaming pot and mismatched cups standing on a filing cabinet.

“How refreshing,” Albert said dryly, sitting down opposite her.

Diane raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“Have you met your colleagues? They all look like those housewives from the old commercials, smiling at a new model of toaster or mop bucket with nothing behind their eyes but barbital and an eagerness to please.”

There was an edge to Diane’s voice as she spoke. “A woman can go stir crazy with how she’s treated in a place like this, believe me. They’re just adapting to the environment. Smile a lot, look pretty, nod at everything the big man says. It’s a survival strategy.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, yes, that also means there’s no one to have a half-decent conversation with around here.”

“We’ve been doing alright, I’d say.”

“Now, you --” she aimed the tip of her pencil at Albert’s chest again, “did not struck me as the sociable type.”

“Like you said, no one to have a half-decent conversation with.”

“Touche.” Diane smiled, the sharpness gone from her voice. “Hey, let’s play three questions. To break the ice, you know. Go on, start. Ask me anything you’d like.”

“Alright, what’s your natural hair colour?”

“If I tell you that, I’ll have to kill you, understand?”

“There’s no point to the questions if you’re dodging them.”

“Fine, fine. Basic, boring blonde. But that’s a state secret, agent Rosenfield, remember that.” She tapped the pencil on her lip. “Bourbon or vodka?”

“Bourbon.” He thought for a moment. “Aretha or Ella?”

“Nina.”

“You’re cheating.”

“What do you think about Gordon?”

“He didn’t put you up to this, did he?” Albert asked, taken aback by the sudden change of style. Diane rolled her eyes.

“No, and he’s not listening from behind the door. I’m just curious.”

“GREAT GUY, THAT GORDON!” Albert shouted in the direction of Gordon’s office. “Was that in poor taste? Sorry. Between you and me, I’ve been here for a year now, and I still haven’t figured him out.” Diane nodded, and Albert considered what would be an appropriate question now, given the turn in the conversation.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked eventually.

“Well, there was often this wailing and throwing things around in our old family home, but it would always turn out to be my sister, so I’m gonna say no.” She bit her lip. “That was an unexpected one.”

Albert shrugged. “Your last one. Shoot.”

“Okay. Can you tell me what’s the best Chinese restaurant in town?”


	4. The Bigfoot report

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lost my momentum a bit, sorry about that. You know how it is, so-called real life gets in the way, and then when you finally have the time you write a completely unrelated thing on the side. But this one is not abandoned, even if updates might not be so frequent for a while.  
> And so I'm back with chapter four: on absences, entrances, and monsters, and office gossip.  
> The cardinal emotion of the month was: soul-eating frustration.

i.

“WHERE’S JEFFRIES?!” Gordon shouted from the door. It wasn’t his normal shouting; this was upset shouting, as evident from both the tone and the red flush in his face. Besides, it was unusual for Gordon to call Phil by his last name; and it was even more unusual for Gordon to not know what everyone in the office was up to, at all times. Something was wrong, and no mistake.

“Morning, Gordon,” Albert said calmly. Keeping his cool, even when he was expected to deal with six impossible problems before breakfast; see how far he’s come, in the area of social niceties.

The thing was, he remembered very well the last time he saw Phil, only two days before - even though they haven’t been talking or working together much lately, which, in all honesty, Albert was very glad about. Nevertheless, he distinctly remembered Phil saying he was off on an investigation for a couple of days, which Albert assumed to be one hundred percent legitimate, because why wouldn’t he; although, come to think of it, he also remembered Phil saying “the answer was in the dream”, so, pinch of salt. But if he was sure of one thing, it was that he didn’t want to be involved in any of it.

“Maybe he was abducted by aliens,” he offered with a shrug.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

“I SAID, MAYBE ALIENS TOOK HIM,” Albert repeated, adjusting his volume. Gordon puzzled over this answer for a moment, but ultimately the sarcasm was evident on Albert’s face.

“THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER! IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING, BETTER TELL ME RIGHT AWAY!”

Albert raised an eyebrow. “I was not aware that I’m on babysitting duty,” he said. Screw the niceties; he wasn’t going to sit there quietly being told off for somebody else’s faults - especially Phil’s faults, which were far too many to take on that kind of burden. “If Jeffries didn’t consult his UFO-spotting escapades with you, that really isn’t any of my business.”

Gordon frowned. “I DON’T APPRECIATE YOUR TONE, ALBERT.”

“And I don’t appreciate that my talents are wasted on cross-referencing missing persons reports with Bigfoot sightings”, Albert replied, nodding towards the pile of papers on his desk. “And yet, here we both are.”

“IT’S NOT ABOUT BIGFOOT, ALBERT. THERE ARE CERTAIN PHENOMENA WHICH ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY --”

“It’s bullshit,” Albert cut in, exasperatedly. “All of it. When people disappear, they don’t ride off into the sunset on unicorns or get eaten by the Jersey Devil. They just turn up ten years later buried in someone’s backyard. What you’re having me do here is a waste of my time, and, frankly, has very little to do with my job description.”

Maybe he was crossing a line, but then again, it was also unusual for Gordon to be anything else than all buddy-buddy with him; which was why what Gordon said next came as a bit of a shock.

“YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION IS TO DO WHAT I SAY! MAY I REMIND YOU THAT IF I DIDN’T PULL SOME STRINGS, YOU WOULD BE IN A DEAD END IN SAN FRANCISCO! SO BETTER GET BACK TO THOSE REPORTS, I WANT TO SEE THE FULL EVALUATION BY FRIDAY! AND IF YOU HEAR FROM JEFFRIES, LET ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY!”

Albert stared at him, stunned. First of all, “remind” was a bad choice of word, since nothing like this has ever been said before; even if Albert could have guessed it, which he could, Gordon has never attempted to hold sway over him like that. Secondly, at the present moment, it was hard to imagine more of a career dead end than sifting through the statements of cryptid encounters. And lastly, whatever conflict Gordon and Phil have clearly fallen into, Albert saw no reason why he should bear the brunt of it. But ultimately, there was nothing he could do about it.

“Sure thing, boss.”

Gordon stormed out, which did a little something to clear the atmosphere, and Albert wondered, neither for the first nor the last time, what was _really_ going on here. He supposed he could always try to transfer, but he wasn’t seriously contemplating it, no. He wasn’t sure if he was developing a sense of loyalty, or if he simply suspected there wasn’t a better place to go.

“By the way, where’s Jeffries?” Albert asked. He tried to keep a neutral, casual tone, like he saw all his colleagues regularly, and they all appeared sound of mind and body at all times. Like he didn’t talk with Diane, who could hear Gordon through the walls even when she turned the radio up, and who wouldn’t relay any information but would always drop a hint that something was up. Like he wasn’t worried, or _mildly_ annoyed at having to sift through the world’s stupidest top secret archive instead of a certain someone; like he was just idly curious, just asking, by the way. Gordon appeared to consider the answer carefully.

“HE’S ON A LEAVE, ALBERT. WON’T BE BACK IN A WHILE.”

Albert whistled. “So, he finally cracked,” he said. Too lightly, given the dark look Gordon shot him. Gordon, who just came back after his own mysterious period of absence, only to be followed by Phil’s, and suddenly Albert had the unpleasant thought that he was next in line. He decided he wasn’t letting Gordon leave without getting some straight answers first.

“What happened, Gordon?” he asked, more serious this time.

Gordon sat down across from Albert, and leaned heavily on his desk. He fiddled with his hearing aid a bit, grimacing, until he appeared to reach a somewhat satisfactory result. When he spoke, it was a little quieter than usual, but still in the same manner, words dropping off at a slow, measured rhythm, letting each one sink in. 

“I KNOW THAT JEFFRIES TOLD YOU WHAT IT IS THAT WE DO HERE.”

“You mean Blue Book? Yeah, he did.”

Gordon nodded. “I ALSO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT, BUT I WANT YOU TO BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL.”

“What do you mean?”

“CLOSING YOUR EYES IS A WAY OF LOSING SIGHT, TOO.”

Esoteric advice was vague by definition, and Albert was used to it by now; but today he felt exceptionally determined.

“If this is supposed to be a useful warning, you need to be less cryptic,” he said, wearily, but sternly enough. “And if I am in any _real_ danger, I would really like to know.”

Gordon stood up, and clasped a hand on Albert’s shoulder, staring at him with those watery blue eyes and that fake earnest face.

“I SAID WHAT I MEANT, AND I MEANT IT! YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN, BUT TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS! STAY SHARP, ALBERT. WE NEED YOU. I NEED YOU.”

An awkward silence followed that statement, until it was broken by Albert, who took a folder out of his desk drawer and pushed it towards Gordon.

“Well, here’s the report on the Bigfoot attacks,” he said dryly. It would probably turn out too honest for Gordon’s liking, but if that wasn’t what Gordon kept him around for, he could just let him go. This time, however, Gordon was in a much less volatile mood, and didn’t even correct him again.

“THANK YOU, ALBERT.”

ii.

Diane once told Albert that the guy from HR was a little bit afraid of him; seeing how the man entered his office, Albert could believe it. First, there was a polite knock, then the door opened slightly, and Gerald’s head poked through, the rest of him following only when he felt bold enough. Albert looked him up and down.

“You’ve been to Iceland, Gerald?” he asked.

“Huh?” confused, Gerald followed Albert’s line of sight down to his grey striped sweater vest, with a snowflake pattern across the chest. “Oh, this? No, Walmart.”

Albert suppressed a laugh. “Alright, what did you want?”

“We’re - we’re having the _traditional_ office Christmas party on Friday. I was just - going around letting people know. So, uh…” Gerald trailed off.

“I told you last year: I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Uh, right, then… What about, what’s it called, Hanukkah?” he hazarded.

“Don’t.”

“It’s just about having a good time,” Gerald said miserably.

Eventually, Albert showed up, mostly because Diane was going, and that promised some fun to be had. He came fashionably late, on purpose, to see only the interesting bits, which always happened when everyone has relaxed a bit already; skip the milling about and awkward small talk, and jump right to somebody embarrassing themselves in a hopefully spectacular manner.

Diane, with her lilac curls and silver-tasseled dress, looked like an angel figurine, the kind you put on top of the tree to stare down at everybody in the room.

“What exciting social rituals of office wildlife did I miss?” Albert asked, sidling over to her side. Diane started to count on her perfectly manicured fingers.

“Barnes was caroling, unfortunately. Terry made a pass at me.” She pointed at a surly man sitting in the corner with one conspicuously reddening cheek. “Nora was telling me about her son for the past twenty minutes, and Kathy McGill voiced her deepest regret that Jeffries isn’t here. Last year, apparently, he was teaching her to dance zydeco.” They looked at the giggling girl from accounting, accosting one of the young agents with a cup of eggnog in hand. And then at Gordon, engaged in a round of too loud jokes and back-slapping with the regional director. Diane brought her glass to her lips, and made a sour face in Gordon’s general direction.

“I’m being reassigned.” She said it like the words were leaving an unpleasant taste in her mouth. “I mean, it’s only to the 4th floor, but still.”

“Why?” Albert was genuinely surprised. After all, Gordon seemed delighted with her, in stark contrast to pretty much everybody else, according to every year’s employee evaluation. It was always equally hard to imagine Cole firing his people, or anybody else wanting them.

“Gordon is giving me away - he actually phrased it like that, can you believe? - to some new recruit, which is a bit odd, if you ask me. I think something’s up, but as always he plays innocent.”

Albert shook his head in a show of incredulity and outrage.

“Have you at least met the guy yet?”

“Yes, once. He seemed nice enough, even if a bit strange.”

“After Gordon, strange should be your specialty,” Albert pointed out.

“Ha! A different kind of strange, though. Maybe, I’m not sure.” Diane frowned. “You know, sometimes I feel like Gordon thinks we’re his family; and sometimes like we’re just... furniture to him.”

“That’s how families are, sometimes.”

“Guess you’re right.” Diane looked around, and leaned closer to Albert’s ear. “Tell you what, I think there will be some re-decorating around here soon.”

iii.

Albert didn’t actually meet Diane’s new assignment until February; and as months went, this was a bad one. Aprils might have been the cruellest, but Februaries were simply brutal. There was something about this time of year, when the novelty and optimism of a new beginning was just about starting to wear off, and the spring was tantalizingly close-yet-far-from-reach. Februaries comprised entirely of days that dragged mercilessly long, and yet there were always too few of them, never enough time to do what you wanted. People went mad in February.

Case in point, perhaps: three bodies in the morgue, disfigured almost beyond recognition, deep knife-cuts across their faces, and bruised, criss-crossing ligature marks all over the torso, arms and neck. Leads were scarce: the corpses ditched by the river, so far unconnected to a scene of actual murder, ropes from Lowe’s, the scant DNA and prints returning no match from the databases. Three prostitutes, two of them colored, a textbook case - easy pickings, because nobody seemed to care, and that was the worst thing of all.

Well, Albert cared. He’s been thinking about it so much that he began to dream about it, which he carelessly mentioned to Gordon one day, and now every other morning he was interrogated, in an increasingly desperate manner, about the precise content of his nightmares; and maddeningly pointless as it was, it suggested that Gordon did care as well, in some capacity. Unfortunately, there were no revelations. Albert hated to admit it, but he missed Jeffries’ intuition - his deductive reasoning, that is, rather than his alleged premonions - because now, on his own, he was at a loss. He did what he could with the physical evidence, and left the rest to Gordon; but Gordon wasn’t really a field agent anymore, and so it was becoming apparent that they were short-staffed.

Albert was in the gruelling process of lecturing one of his less caring or careful assistants about his lack of professionalism, heart, and possibly also a brain, when he heard a short knock on the door, repeated after a brief pause. He barked a “come in”, glancing over his shoulder, and then did a double take, because what was standing on his doorstep was an absolute impossibility.

He remembered Diane saying the words “new recruit”, but they almost felt like an understatement, because the guy looked fresh as a spring sapling and just as green. His crisp white shirt, immaculate black suit, neatly combed-back hair and million-dollar smile seemed completely untainted - untouched, even - by the gritty reality surrounding him.

“Special agent Dale Cooper,” the man introduced himself, grabbing Albert’s arm and enthusiastically shaking his hand. He had a sparkle in his eyes like a goddamn cartoon character, and Albert distractedly wondered if meeting every new person around here will feel like a blow to the head, because that was the track record so far.

“Gordon assigned me to help you with your current case,” special agent Dale Cooper continued, so thrilled about it that Albert felt sorry for him, on the account of the inevitable disappointment he was setting himself up for.

“Good to know,” he muttered gruffly, thrown somewhat off his rhythm. 

Dale Cooper, as it quickly turned out, also did care, which, considering the circumstances, was truly a blessing; but Dale Cooper also seemed to love his job to the point of mild insanity. Still, his engagement produced results, and ultimately, that was the most important thing.

iv.

Diane swivelled around in her chair.

“Now, I know we can’t talk details, but he said something I _must_ hear you comment on.”

“Oh, so _he_ can talk details with you?”

Diane smiled. “He makes those cassette tapes, you know? They’re his case notes, in theory, but he kind of treats them as his personal diary as well.” She rolled her eyes. “He just goes on about anything that comes to his head, pretty much. And my job is to transcribe the more relevant bits for the files.”

Once again, Albert wondered where the hell was Gordon getting his people from; in his head, of course, he didn't count himself as part of the whole clown circus.

“So, what did he say?”

Diane leaned in conspiratorially over her desk.

“He said, get this, that the killer was not entirely human.”

Albert groaned inwardly. “Should’ve known Gordon would get another mystic on board. I’m guessing the next hire will be a psychic. You know, one of those middle-aged women who own a dusty little shop where they do tarot readings, and sell pieces of rock salt for twenty bucks for _‘spiritual healing’_?”

“It’s not a consensus, then,” Diane concluded.

“It’s bullshit,” Albert said curtly.

“That reminds me,” Diane said, “there was also a mention of one very angry and a _tiny_ bit rude pathologist --”

“Oh, come on, seriously?! I wasn’t even --”

As it often happens in such situations, they were interrupted by the subject of their conversation himself, walking briskly into the room. Almost a month after he arrived, Dale Cooper was still so full of energy that he almost sent sparks flying off the carpet as he walked; Albert had to admit it was quite impressive.

“Diane, Albert, I met this strange man in the break room downstairs,” he announced happily. Albert put up a hand to stop him.

“Hold on,” he said. “Weird eyes? Terrible dress sense? Told you that you smelled of fire, or something?”

“He did, actually,” Cooper confirmed, surprised. Diane and Albert exchanged quick looks.

“Shit, Phil’s back,” Albert muttered, getting up to leave. “Bet you there’ll be a meeting in ten minutes. I’ll get going.” He turned to Cooper on his way out.

“Coop, that was agent Jeffries. He claims he can see the future, you should ask him about it.” He figured the two of them were probably worth each other, especially seeing that the irony in his voice almost certainly went over Cooper’s head. With a sigh, Albert headed for the door. Last thing he needed was another goddamn dreamer.


	5. Sinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was definitely the hardest chapter to write so far, and possibly will have been the hardest overall. Not even counting personal life circumstances affecting my capacity to write in general, but just. It refers to events from MLMT, which I have read ages ago, don't have a copy of at hand, and remember very vaguely; but mostly just, I don't like Windom. (You'll be able to tell, lol.) I get that he's important to the plot, that's why I can't quite ignore his existence, but I just can't bring myself to care about him. So, struggles. Not at my best. See you next time, hopefully soon.

i.

In April, Albert met Windom Earle, and hated him on sight. It went down like this:

Jeffries accosted Albert in the break room. He made them coffee, which was as disgusting as anything he ever ate or drank, and conversationally mentioned the serial arsonist who made headlines last week. He started asking about all the gruesome details of dying in a fire, which Albert wasn’t sure whether it was work-related or just Jeffries’ personal interest. And then Cooper came in, engaged in his own, undoubtedly more pleasant conversation with another man, whom Albert didn’t recognize. The man wore a tweed jacket and (in Albert’s opinion) a rather ugly hat, as well as an unsolicited expression of smugness, while Coop sported his usual glossy old Hollywood star charm. It struck Albert that they both seemed disquieting, although in two very different ways, but whilst he was getting used to Cooper’s strangeness, something about the other guy rubbed him entirely the wrong way. And it looked like he wasn’t the only one; Jeffries froze with the coffee cup halfway to his lips, and scowled at the stranger, whose smile seemed in turn to say something like _gee, what a surprise!_ , but in a most insincere way. There was some history there, and no mistake.

“Have you seen Gordon anywhere?” Cooper asked, entirely ignoring the tension hanging thick in the air.

“Meeting room upstairs,” Jeffries replied, still glaring at the pair of them.

“Don’t trust him,” he added after they left. Albert raised an eyebrow.

“Which one?”

Jeffries appeared to think about it for a moment. “Either of them,” he said eventually.

“Who was that, even?”

“Windom Earle. I worked with him for a bit in Pittsburgh, before I came here.”

“He seemed a bit…” Albert trailed off, wondering how to put his vague impression into only moderately offensive words, but it turned out there was no need.

“He’s a pompous asshole, and he’s full of _really_ weird shit,” Jeffries said emphatically.

“Mmm. So, would you say he’s worse than you, or just about the same?”

Windom Earle was definitely worse, as Albert had the unfortunate opportunity to find out over the next couple of days. He’d come in once in a while to have a hushed conversation with Gordon, followed by a coffee and a chat with Coop, whom he treated in what seemed to Albert like a slyly amiable way. To Albert’s bristly demeanor, which usually made people angry, he instead reacted with a genial air of condescending superiority, which only served to rile Albert up further. Sometimes, left alone with his thoughts, Albert wondered if he was being irrational, if this animosity was perhaps unfounded; but then the next day he’d see that goddamn sneer, or worse yet hear the man speak, and he’d remember he was right.

Oh, but the meetings - Gordon, Windom, Phil, even Coop... A part of Albert was happy to have as little to do with the whole Blue Book business as possible, but then he couldn’t help feeling somewhat bitter that being a part of it apparently didn’t entitle him to be invited into the fucking inner circle before _Cooper_ , of all people, the newest member of the team. Sure, Coop seemed to get on with Cole and Earle like a house on fire, and Albert wasn’t stupid, he knew well enough how important it was to have connections - a currency he never cared to accumulate, and he suffered for it with pride, but suffered nonetheless. Worst of all, there was again that detested atmosphere of unnecessary secrecy, elevated almost to a religion, perhaps more heavy and stifling than ever, so much that Albert wouldn’t be surprised if one day he saw Masonic aprons on the lot of them. Diane must’ve really been onto something when she said that a change was coming. She always seemed to know which way the wind was blowing; when she claimed something big was going to go down, Albert was inclined to believe.

ii.

He was too sensible and compassionate a man to say something like, “see, this is why I don’t carry weapons”. He did think it, but he was also aware of a certain privilege he enjoyed in that matter: as a forensic examiner, he usually arrived at the scene after all the action was over. He could make a statement out of never firing his gun outside of mandatory training, because as of yet he has never had an actual reason to use it.

Cooper sounded… subdued. _Of fucking course, genius._ Having shot a man was bound to pull a few clouds over his usual sunshine-and-rainbows attitude. Albert quite literally could not imagine what that must’ve felt like. He lit a cigarette, holding the phone receiver between his head and his shoulder, and even managed to catch it before it fell down to the floor as it slipped out.

“Listen, if you need anything -” he trailed off, momentarily distracted, and unsure of what exactly he could offer.

“Thank you, Albert,” Cooper said quietly.

“Say, what are you doing on Saturday?” Albert hazarded.

“Windom invited me over.”

“Ah. Well, that’s nice of him.” He didn’t really know what else to say. He heard some muffled shuffling on the other end of the call. “Alright. Take care, Coop.”

He put the phone down, and wandered over to his kitchen table, briefly examining how this information was making him feel. Cooper was, of course, allowed to see whoever he wanted, and it was none of Albert’s business, even if he still felt deep in his bones that Earle was somehow bad news. Even if he felt a tinge of - what, jealousy? Ridiculous. He called Coop because he felt like he should, although they were hardly close friends. They’ve worked together for barely a few months, and Albert didn’t even like him that much. He was just… sympathetic. Was Earle sympathetic, too? Albert could hardly believe _that_.

It was Diane’s idea, that they should go out together when Coop came back to work, though Albert agreed readily. The thing about Diane was, she was... observant, especially when it came to people. She’d say something like, “I think the reason why we’re having the third emergency meeting this week is because sometime last year agent Jeffries lost his will to live, and is only coping by dedicating himself entirely to his work, which Gordon is taking full advantage of, by the way, and it sometimes makes me worried about what they’ll do the day no one dies in mysterious circumstances or reports a UFO sighting”, or “I think you and I should have a couple of drinks, because you haven’t spent an evening with anyone who wasn’t a corpse in about a month, and it’s making you even grumpier than normal”, and she would always, _always_ be right. So when she said, “we should take Cooper out for dinner, because I don’t think he has any actual friends apart from that slimy creep who’s been hanging about the office lately, and called me “the Scarlet Woman” when I dyed my hair red, I almost hit him, and you know how underneath our cold and hard exteriors we might be the only half-decent people around here”, Albert thought, _sure_. She picked the place too, the kind she always picked, a stylish but cozy bar. 

“I’m glad you let us invite you,” Diane said brightly. “I hope you didn’t have any better plans for tonight.”

Her tone was light, but there was subtext there that was clear enough, and Cooper’s smile seemed a little apologetic.

“Windom has been teaching me to play chess,” he said. “I find it quite… stimulating.”

Diane took a big sip of her wine, and loudly cleared her throat.

“How exciting,” she commented.

“He’s been very supportive,” Dale went on, a bit defensively. “He told me all about how he went through the same thing - ” he stopped abruptly and frowned, as if he heard some kind of dissonance in his own voice. The words echoed in the awkward silence that followed.

“What is it?” Diane prompted, softly, carefully.

“Caroline said he was… affected badly, when he first… took a life. I’m not sure what she meant by that. But she said she wished the same doesn’t happen to me.”

“Caroline?” Albert asked.

“Windom’s wife.”

Something about the way Coop said her name rang some kind of alarm bell in Albert’s mind, pushed some kind of button. He turned to examine the lights filtering through his glass like a prism, falling in a multicolored beam across the table, their glow fuzzy on the edges. To get out of his head into the maze of the wood grain, because he didn’t know what to do with his thoughts; wanted to evade them before they get a grip on him and make him make a mistake. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diane, also glancing at him sideways with one perfectly arched eyebrow.

iii.

Albert has first heard about it through one of his colleagues from the morgue. The fact that the body didn’t land on Albert’s table was a relief, because it meant that no _weird shit_ has happened yet; just plain old murder. Something to do with the mafia, the word was. The dead man’s face was a mess of acid burns and his hands were cut clean off, which has made identification problematic with cruel efficiency; this has in turn lead to a theory that the man’s identity was a big clue in itself, were it to be established. Coop was working hard on it together with Windom, and he was talking about it constantly, but otherwise it was none of Albert’s business.

And then everything went to hell.

First, Earle has disappeared. He’s been acting strangely as of late, even for his standards. He seemed more secretive, more paranoid than ever, and seemed to talk mostly in incomprehensible references; this wasn’t very far off from usual, but a certain shift was noticeable. So when he didn’t show up neither at work nor at home for a day, then two, then three, and even Gordon genuinely didn’t know anything, it wasn’t any less concerning, but it did not exactly come as a shock. By the time another corpse has cropped up, Caroline Earle was scared senseless, at least according to Cooper, who now visited or at least phoned her almost daily.

As it always happens when an agent is involved, and potentially in danger, searching efforts were doubled, and have yielded a questionable result - a pair of cut-off hands. They matched the latest victim in every aspect - skin tone, size, stage of decomposition, surface of the cut; there was no doubt. But there was a problem. They were still fresh enough to take the fingerprints, which, just as suspected, hit a match in the Bureau database. A retired gangster, gone off the radar for a bit, but recently resurfaced in connection with some new drug-dealing enterprise. The DEA kept tabs on him, as it turned out, and reported that the man was dead, which was no news, and that a funeral has been held recently, which definitely did not add up, since the dearly departed still occupied a drawer in the morgue. The body that’s been buried was exhumed, and suddenly the whole affair was Albert’s problem after all, because there were now two bodies: one with a gunshot to his heart, but otherwise whole, and one with a slit throat and cut-off hands, and beyond those differences they were identical in every aspect. A memory of the Lois Duffy case has insinuated itself into Albert’s mind, and would not leave. He remembered being skeptical about Jeffries’ retelling of what had gone down in that motel, during her arrest. He could almost laugh now.

Windom was still missing; nobody wanted to say it out loud, but pretty much everybody wondered if he’ll turn up as one of the faceless corpses too. That was until August 3rd, when Caroline Earle reported getting a call from her husband. According to her, he only said two words: "I'm sinking," and then hung up.

They never really deciphered what he had meant. He did actually show up at the office the next morning, much to everyone’s surprise, but before they could get any explanations out of him, he passed out in the middle of the room, and was rushed off to hospital. Cooper, as lead investigator in this case, went to visit him. A meeting was set up already by the time he got back.

“DID HE WAKE UP?” Gordon asked, straight to the point. Coop nodded. “WHAT DID HE SAY?”

“Something about… hold on.” He took out his notebook. “Something about a “dweller in the abyss”. He wasn’t too... coherent,” he added apologetically.

For a moment, it seemed like this rang a bell to Jeffries, and Gordon looked at him expectantly.

“Does that mean anything to you?” Albert prompted too, but Jeffries just shrugged, and leaned back in his chair.

“Everybody has their own abyss,” he said philosophically.

iv.

There was another meeting, soon after. Windom wasn’t there, still being on leave, or perhaps for some other reason. Albert sat next to Coop, while Jeffries rocked in his chair on the other end of the table. Gordon stood by the window, looking out. Diane entered with a tray of coffee and donuts, and exchanged a look with Albert as she set it down. Gordon turned around.

“THANK YOU, DIANE,” he said. “CLOSE THE DOOR AS YOU LEAVE, PLEASE.”

Diane rolled her eyes, and left the company. Gordon walked over to the table.

“MY FRIENDS, I HAVE TWO VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO SAY,” he announced. “FIRST, I HAVE A PROMOTION COMING. DEPUTY DIRECTOR.”

“Congratulations, boss,” said Albert. “And what’s the bad news?”

“THE OTHER GOOD NEWS IS THAT I HAVE SECURED FUNDING FOR A NEW TASK FORCE.” Gordon's words were punctuated by a small _thud_ as all four legs of Phil’s chair hit the ground at once. Phil turned to face each one of his colleagues in turn, slowly, as always enjoying his theatrics.

“We’ve all been engaged in certain… extracurricular activities,” he drawled. “And the two of you” - he gestured at Albert and Coop - “are by now aware of the late Blue Book project. Well, I’m here to tell you that it is bein’ resurrected, so to speak, in the form of what we’re callin’ Special Task Force B. Which is currently the four of us. We will still take on regular cases, but our primary goal is now to continue the legacy of Blue Book. We’ve been dippin’ our toes in those waters, but now we’re divin’ right in, if you catch my drift. We’re gettin’ to work, gentlemen.”

There was a kind of tension to him, stronger than ever before, something high-strung and almost manic. Albert hasn't really been paying much attention to him lately, too preoccupied with Cooper and Earle and twin corpses, but something about Jeffries was _different_. Maybe he should ask Diane about it.

Gordon took the floor again. “WITH MY NEW POSITION, I WILL STILL BE OVERSEEING EVERYTHING, BUT YOU WILL ANSWER DIRECTLY TO AGENT JEFFRIES AS TASK FORCE LEADER,” he said. The idea of Jeffries holding an official position of authority made Albert crack a smile, despite everything.


	6. Four fun trips for the Philly boys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, man. this chapter has gone through SO MANY rewrites, alterations and cutting bits out and so on... the four parts/cases were inspired by Philipp Igumnov's surreal photo manips, and were originally much more... X-Filesy (in my opinion as someone who has never seen a single episode of The X Files, but you can probably guess what I mean), and as such didn't feel quite right. it might still be too on-the-nose weird, idk, but the update is late enough as it is.

i.

“Where?”

“Montana. The Rockies. Don’t worry, you’re not goin’ anywhere,” Jeffries added quickly, seeing the expression on Albert’s face. “I know how much you hate a nature walk.”

“You don’t look too thrilled about it either,” Albert riposted.

“Oh, I don’t mind the travellin’,” Jeffries said grimly. “It’s the company I’m not thrilled about, as you say.”

Albert eyed him skeptically. “Aren’t you the boss now? Isn’t it up to you?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Jeffries winced, like he tasted the bitterness in his own voice. “Unfortunately, Gordon wants me to babysit Cooper on this one, and what Gordon wants still goes.”

“What have you got against him, anyway?” Phil’s aversion towards Cooper was well known to everyone in the office, and as passionate as it was inexplicable. “He’s not a bad agent, all things considered.”

Jeffries shrugged. “I just don’t like him,” he blurted out, direct and blunt. “He’s got this weird look in his eyes, you know?”

“A certain saying comes to my mind. Something about a pot and a kettle.”

Jeffries laughed. “Touché. I’m serious, though. Something’s off about him. He gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Albert decided he wasn’t going to argue.  “Whatever you say, Phil.”

“I’ve got a hunch about this one, though,” Phil said, skipping between topics with effortless grace. 

“Oh, do you? Had any good prophetic dreams lately?” Albert scoffed.

Jeffries seemed irked by Albert’s dismissal. “Maybe I did,” he snapped. “You’ll see, this’ll be the real thing.”

“Well, good luck,” Albert said, getting up to leave. “If you see a ghost, please do take pictures. I hate when there’s no pictures. It’s like people aren’t even trying.”

Phil did look a bit like he’s seen a ghost, actually, when he came back.  _ I’m sure Cooper will tell you everything, _ he told Albert stiffly, so Albert made sure to ask Coop about it, because despite himself he felt curious.

"How was the hiking trip, Coop?" he asked casually.  It wasn’t like he expected to hear an actual ghost story, but something interesting has clearly happened, and office gossip was running dry lately. Dale hesitated.  "Alright, what did he do?"

"He almost walked off a cliff," Dale said; quietly, but you can’t say something like that and not have it reverberate for a bit in the silence that follows. And yet, Albert was only moderately surprised.

"What, on purpose, or…?"

"He said he could feel something; I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. But he stepped off the trail, and just walked straight ahead, right up to the edge. I went after him, of course. As he was about to take another step,  _ something  _ happened. It was... as if for a second he wasn't there at all, there was a flicker --”

Albert listened to the story, wondering if all of Cooper’s infamous tapes sounded like this: measured, a steady rhythm of one thing after another, even if the things didn’t fully add up. Factoidal, sometimes, but always seeming deeply personal, like a retelling of a dream. The way he spoke was colored with strange fascination, and for a moment Albert thought he could see what Phil was talking about.  _ He’s got this weird look in his eyes, you know? _

“...and then he was there again, and I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. He turned to me, but he seemed to look right through me, as if  _ I _ wasn't there. He didn't say anything. And I... did not see what he must have seen." Was that regret in his voice, just there?

"You know, there's a distinct possibility that he didn’t really see anything either," Albert said, venturing out into a disputed territory. Predictably, Dale shook his head slowly.

"It didn't look to me like he was pretending."

"Well, maybe not, but did it occur to you he might've been... mistaken? Look, I'm not trying to undermine Jeffries' credibility, but frankly, I think he's cracking under pressure." As he said this, Dale gave him an uncharacteristically sharp look.  "My advice is, don’t believe in everything he says.”

Cooper was quiet, and Albert could see by the expression on his face that the whole trip unfortunately gave him a lot to think about; and that was worrying, for obvious reasons.

Gordon once said - well, not directly, but Albert has easily read it between the lines - that he appreciated Albert as a resident voice of reason; he also told Albert to be careful, and now Albert was going to be the voice of reason and tell Coop to be careful, too. Because Jeffries was slowly losing it, but he had no right to drag someone down with him. Albert wasn't sure where all that protectiveness was coming from, some kind of deep instinct, he was thinking about getting a dog lately but he's probably too busy for that - anyway, it was no news that Coop was too eager for his own good. Too ready to accept some things. Did Albert believe in ghosts? In those past few years he was forced to re-evaluate many previously perceived tenets of reality, but he wasn’t going to go around just believing in things. He had principles, for crying out loud. And some sense of self-preservation, apparently unlike his colleagues.

“All I’m saying is, don’t go running off a cliff yourself, alright?”

ii.

“Kansas? How’s that any of our business, then?” Albert asked, although he already knew the answer; he just had to make a show of resistance. Without saying a word, Phil took a piece of paper from his ledger and pushed it across the table. It was a photograph. It showed a family of seven, standing outside on a bright, sunny day, in a field of rust-tinted grass. Behind them, there was a flying saucer. An actual flying saucer, silvery, with circular windows and an antenna on the roof. Albert closed his eyes and took a deep breath; when he looked again, the picture was unfortunately still there, still the same. He became aware of Coop looking at it over his shoulder.

“It’s a fake,” he declared, before anybody else had the chance to say anything. “It looks fake, and I mean it. Even for a UFO, I can’t imagine it would fool anybody.”

Phil nodded. “I’d be inclined to agree,” he said. “I’ve certainly seen better ones on TV. It looks like they’ve built it themselves in their own barn. You can ask the girl if they did.” He leaned in and tapped his finger on the photo, where the youngest child stood.” “She’s the only one of them who didn’t vanish into thin air.”

“But no one’s turned up dead yet, right?” Albert asked, as the full meaning of that statement sunk in. It was an important question, and also carried the implication that  _ perhaps _ interviewing alien abductees was outside the scope of Albert’s responsibilities. And while sending Coop and Phil on a case together has clearly been proven a bad idea, surely either of them could handle it on his own, without the need for Albert’s involvement?

“No, but…” Albert could see that the meaning behind his words has been read and acknowledged, and that Jeffries did nevertheless have an unshakable opinion on the subject. “I think your experience will come in handy anyway.”

_ What experience, exactly? _ Albert wanted to say. He never really managed to prove any of the wild stories true - none of them did, actually. He managed to disprove a few, which technically wasn’t the goal, and yet those were still too few for his taste. Most of the Blue Roses, as they’ve begun to call those special cases, fell somewhere in between, usually for the lack of conclusive evidence, or the nature of any evidence present. Oh, they’ve all witnessed some strange things themselves, but at least Albert tried to be careful with interpretations, because someone had to be when the rest of the team trained for the World Championships in Jumping to Conclusions. He wondered if they’ll ever truly  _ solve _ a Blue Rose case, and whether that will be better or worse than the alternative.

“Don’t you think we should expand? Branch out. Have little regional subdivisions here and there. I’m gonna bring forward a motion to Phil. Back me up on this, will you, Coop?” 

Dale looked at him blankly with his mouth full of pie. He definitely didn’t share Albert’s point of view; he seemed happy to be on the road. He must’ve really hated being on desk duty after the shooting incident. Albert sighed.

“We’d be a grand and proud institution?” he risked, but it didn’t get the desired effect either. However, there was a flash of realization in Cooper’s eyes, and he smiled, snapping his fingers in front of Albert’s face.

“You just want to wriggle out of it.”

“Me? Never.” Albert shifted in his seat with a creak of faux-leather upholstery. “Don't even think of giving me a pep talk," he warned.

“You seem tense,” Albert said, as they sat outside the sheriff’s office, waiting for him to arrange an interview with the missing family’s girl. “What’s the problem?”

“This is a delicate matter, and I’m not sure --” Dale trailed off.

“What?”

“How good you are with children,” he finally said. Albert gave him a short laugh.

“Oh, that’s it? I’m fine with children, don’t worry. It’s grown-up assholes I can’t stand.” He saw Dale open his mouth, and put up a hand to stop him. “I’m not gonna be rude in front of the kid, I promise. Do you know how many little nieces and nephews I have? I know the drill.”

“You never told me about your family,” Dale pointed out, with an air of friendly curiosity.

“Well, and vice versa,” Albert rebutted. “I could ask you the same thing, really.”

“I must say, you handled it exceptionally well,” Cooper said, earnestly, without a trace of sarcasm. Albert, more modestly, thought they did reasonably okay. The lady from child services was fiercely protective, which earned her an unrequited respect in Albert’s eyes, even if it presented some difficulties. The little girl was so distraught, it seemed obvious that if this was all some sick hoax, she wasn’t in on it. She also claimed that the saucer was real; that the crew were three creatures, about her size, dressed in silver spacesuits; that they seemed friendly and inviting, and allowed the family to take a picture with their craft; that they then let everybody except her on board, and dematerialised. Albert listened to the story patiently, offering no comment, which must’ve seemed unusual; still, he thought Cooper would give him a little more credit.

“Are you surprised by that? I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted,” he said. He meant it as a joke, but the irony went over Cooper’s head.

“There’s no need to be antagonistic, Albert,” he replied, admonishingly.

“I’ve been nice all day, let me have it,” Albert muttered to himself. He shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie, and sat down heavily on the bed, testing it; the mattress sunk under his weight. It was the only motel in town, and the room was like a time capsule: musty smell and once bright colours, a faded garishness of the old shag carpet, patterned wallpaper and frilly curtains. There was a certain unreal quality to this whole place, something false and dreamlike, although maybe it was just what has happened that colored the perception; and the knowledge that if some sort of break doesn’t come, they will likely, once again, come back none the wiser. Coop stood by the open window, breathing in the slightly fresher air coming from the outside. 

“So, what do you think about it?” he asked. Albert considered his answer for a moment.

“In my expert opinion, I smell horseshit, if you pardon my French. Now, I’m not saying the kid is lying, I think she does believe her own story, but you can’t possibly buy it.”

“What about the photograph?”

“Come on, you’ve seen how that thing looked.”

“Yes,” Cooper agreed, “it didn’t seem real at all, did it?”

“A hoax, then.”

“And they abandoned a five year-old child for it? The whole family? Who would do something like this?”

“People have done weirder things,” Albert countered. “Trust me, I’ve seen some of them.”

iii.

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Albert sighed. He didn’t put much effort into hiding his irritation with Phil, who came in seemingly just to sit on the edge of Albert’s desk, rearrange his pens by color and think out loud, as if it was Albert’s job to listen to his ramblings. Maybe he should suggest Phil just started talking to a tape recorder like Coop, instead of bothering him.

Phil gave him a long look. “New Orleans? It’s home,” he said, flipping a stray paperclip between his fingers like a coin trick. “Well, near enough. And I ain’t been home once since I left, and I wasn’t plannin’ on ever changin’ that.”

Albert frowned. “I thought you said you were from Virginia.”

“Nah.” Phil shook his head. “That was just where my life started.” Albert rolled his eyes, because what on Earth was he supposed to say? Jeffries had his own special way of being enigmatic, in which you really did not care to find out what the mystery was.

“You can always send Coop.”

Phil looked at him as if he was offended by the very idea. “I can do my own job just fine,” he said sharply, getting up to leave. Albert sighed. Yes, a tape recorder would be enough, since Phil’s thought process clearly required talking, but getting an answer was an unnecessary hindrance.

He didn’t think twice about that conversation once it was over. He was more than happy if he wasn’t going to be dragged along on some nonsensical road trip, and he wasn’t going to tempt fate with any undue curiosity, lest Phil or Gordon decided that his presence was actually absolutely necessary. And he  _ did _ have something to work on - a pretty straightforward one so far, the kind he always welcomed, because the team’s reputation was terrible anyway, and every now and then someone up top who didn’t have the special clearance wondered why they seemingly produced mostly cold cases, hiding any evidence they managed to gather behind layers upon layers of blackout lines and red tape; it did them good to do something more ordinary, and successful, once in a while. But also - a stupid thing to say, maybe, but only on the regular cases did he feel useful, like he was potentially helping someone, finally doing something tangible, something real. He needed that, too. It did wonders for his mood.

But it seemed that at the end of the day, it always came down to the three of them: Phil, Albert and Diane. Gordon, for all his back-slapping chumminess, always kept a certain distance, even before his promotion; and Coop, well… he was still new, and in many other ways he wasn’t like them. Only now Albert has realised, much to his own surprise, that perhaps he actually got on better with Cooper in those past few weeks.

Phil has been away for longer than anyone expected, and the office was calmer without him. When he eventually came back, as usual it was Diane who proposed they go out, but perhaps for once she made a bad call. The conversation went on stunted, and they were all having just a little too much to drink and still not having a good time. At some point, they made the mistake of talking about work - something they never did, by unspoken agreement; not even because they had disagreements on the topic, but rather because those evenings were meant to be an escape.

But now Albert has made some snide remark that must’ve hit a soft spot, because Phil turned to him with a scowl. There was a fading bruise, a yellowy shadow around his eye, the bad one, and it seemed more unfocused now, sliding off to the left, which gave the impression that he was staring at both Albert and something over his shoulder at the same time.

“I wonder how much longer you can keep up the denial,” he said, his voice bitter and mocking. Just once in a while, between all the usual nonsense, he’d say something like that, something that seemed to cut right through you. Albert wondered if people often punched him. He never did, of course, but he could understand how a less peacefully inclined man would lose his temper.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talkin’ about.” Phil shrugged. “Trust me, you’ll eventually find it easier if you stop pretendin’ you have it all figured out.”

“I think you of all people don’t get to dispense advice on how to cope,” Albert snapped back. He realised he has perhaps gone too far when he saw Jeffries’ whole body tense, and for a terrifying moment he thought Jeffries was going to hit him. He wanted to apologise, but his pride wouldn’t let him.

“Cut it out, will you,” Diane said sharply. “I didn’t come here to listen to you two psychoanalyse each other to death.”

That was another special thing about their little circle - where else could she, a secretary, say something like this? It was probably why she hung around, even if the price for being able to talk back to her bosses was ludicrously steep. To be honest, it was probably why they all hung around, even Coop, who for all his straight-laced boy scout ways was a bit of a misfit too, in his own way, and Albert wondered, not for the first time, how deliberate it was on Gordon’s part: to find a bunch of people with nowhere else to go and bind them together by a terrible, stupid secret. It was insidious, cruel even, and he preferred to think it wasn’t entirely planned, that it just sort of happened; yet still he resented Gordon for it.

iv.

Most times, Jeffries didn’t even bother with calling briefings. The conference room meetings were Gordon’s thing; Phil would simply come up to you and stand over you and talk until he got what he wanted.

“I got somethin’ for you. A case on the East Coast.” He grinned. “It’ll be your homecomin’ now.”

“Oh, speaking of, I’ve had this idea when I was in Kansas with Coop. I said, what if we branched out? Had our people in different regional offices. What do you think?”

“You volunteerin’?”

Albert bit his tongue.

“Thought so,” Jeffries said, and dropped a folder on Albert’s desk.

“What is it about?” Albert asked, reaching for it.

“Arson. Murder. Might be a Blue one, if that’s what you’re askin’. See for yourself.”

Albert began leafing through the report. The body count was up to six by now. Five of the corpses were charred to the bone, the sixth victim was badly burned and died on his way to the hospital. All were found in populated, suburban areas, in broad daylight. Multiple witnesses heard the screaming, some saw a person leaving the scene, although he remained unidentified - the file had a police sketch attached, but no name. The two most disturbing statements mentioned him walking around accompanied by someone else, described as a “burning man”. Albert raised an eyebrow at that.

“It’s sounds like your specialty,” he commented. It was Phil who first picked up on the recurring motif of fire in the Blue Rose files, and ever since made sure cases like this one landed on his desk; it was exactly the kind that would get his attention, with its odd details.

“I know,” he replied, “but I have too much goin’ on. I’d like you to do this for me. You can take some time off afterwards to visit your family, or somethin’ --” he offered.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go. But I’ll take you up on that holiday.”

The deaths were by fire, of that he was sure; the usual causes, cardiac arrest, respiratory distress, burns, smoke, shock, the works. There were traces of accelerant, the lab said engine oil. There probably wouldn’t be anything weird about it - it was horrific enough, sure, but not strange in itself - were it not for those two statements. The “burning man”, or the “fire man”, as the witnesses called him. Albert made up some reason to talk to them again, in person, on his own; although that wasn’t normally his job, he wanted to hear the story first hand if he was going to form a conclusion, and a call from Gordon ensured that no one in the San Francisco office questioned his wishes. Gordon was useful for pulling strings, he had to give him that.

He would have still liked to see it before he believed it. People get confused, especially a few days after a traumatic experience. Memories become mangled, details exaggerated or altered, timelines shifted; it’s not lying because it’s not deliberate, it’s just the imperfection of the human brain.  Imagine you saw someone brutally killed, burned alive. Is it possible that in your shock and terror, you misremembered the sight as… something else? A silhouette of pure flame, walking past you, before the killing occured? If it was made up, it didn't have to make sense.

They did get him, in the end - the other one, that is, the real, human one. A middle-aged man in a beige suit, short, balding, unremarkable. Calm, collected. People always say that about serial killers, there’s always a neighbor or a colleague from work or a family member on TV saying, oh, he was such a good man, such a normal man, he couldn’t have possibly… Most murderers didn’t look like murderers at first glance, and this one was no exception. He didn't look like someone who would pour a can of gasoline over your body and flick a match. He looked like your friendly uncle, who maybe works as a clerk and is really nice, even if he tells exhaustingly boring anecdotes at the family reunions. They almost wanted him to start laughing maniacally, or at least crack a creepy smile like some Hitchcock’s psycho to break that unassuming, charming mask, but the man kept up appearances without a hitch. They asked him if he acted alone, and he looked up at them with his pale, squinted eyes, fixed his wire-frame glasses, and said quietly,  _ my fire is always with me _ . They asked him why did he do it, and why those people in particular - eight at the time - and he said, in that same, monotone voice, with a trace of a hard-to-place accent,  _ the fire chooses what to ignite _ . They asked him, what did he mean by that?  _ Fire is a living thing, _ he said.

“You mean like you and me?” one of them asked.

The man shook his head slowly. “No, not like you at all,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, too lazy and incompetent to write a coherent case fic plot from beginning to end (in Matthew McConaughey's voice, taking a long drag on a cigarette, shrugging): this is a world where nothing is solved.


	7. Blue Lily, Lily Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, uh, so... I know it's been two months BUT they've been two incredibly hectic and busy months, and unfortunately between getting a few commissions and working overtime I wasn't able to update sooner - I will also say right now that the next chapter might also take a while, because I will be doing something for a fanworks exchange and then going on a hiking trip for two weeks, but despite all that I'm still here and this thing will be finished.
> 
> important note: I have decided a long time ago that I'm going to work references to the Satanic Panic into my next Blue Rose fic, because come on, isn't that an obvious choice, but that means this chapter contains brief mentions of child abuse; there are no details or graphic descriptions, though, so don't worry about that. still, if you decide to sit this one out, I don't think you'll be missing that much.
> 
> on a lighter note: I promise I will eventually shut up about Phillip Jeffries. next time. stick around.

i.

He did feel a little odd on his way back, rested and restless at the same time, somehow. A break was well overdue, no complaints there; it was the returning that came with mixed feelings. His mind kept bringing up snippets of conversations from the past few days. He was thinking of dear aunt Lisa, of her eyes alive with curiosity as she ate up all the grisly details he could legally divulge, shushing up any voices of dismay, any groans of _please, not at dinner!_ Of her smile, mischievous but friendly, when she wanted to know if he’s met any “nice boys” - asked old aunt Lisa who never married, aunt Lisa who knew the world, and knew Albert better than anyone, for a while at least, while he still lived there. He was thinking of her hand, small and age-spotted, over his, as she asked, suddenly serious, _are you happy?_ \- and of his own grumbled, flustered reply because he didn’t quite know what to say. He knew the question was going to echo around his skull for a while. He wasn’t _un_ happy, though, and that was always something, wasn’t it?

He flicked the TV on without giving it a second thought, catching an evening news broadcast mid-sentence. The voices buzzed in the background as he stood in the kitchen, reheating a packaged ready-made meal he had grabbed on the way; something he generally tried to avoid, for reasons of health and having a taste, but he decided that he could let this one slide on account of being too damn tired to cook after a cross-country flight. He could’ve eaten out, maybe, but at the moment his own living room couch looked more inviting.

_“...bizarre ritual killings of animals, and even babies...”_

Albert raised on eyebrow, and turned over his shoulder, leaning out of the kitchen doorway. On the screen, the news anchor continued reading out from her notes, in a tone of perfectly modulated shock. The microwave pinged.

_“...repeated disturbing claims, of children as young as four years old being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, forced to participate in Satanic rituals, demon worship…”_

He sat down on the sofa with the steaming plate on his lap, while the speaker went everywhere from the still ongoing McMartin trial, through casting speculations of a conspiracy, down to pointing fingers at the usual scapegoats of fantasy books and rock music. After that Albert decided he couldn’t take any more of it, switched it off and put on a record instead. It was all too close to work anyway, and the holiday wasn’t over until the next morning.

ii.

“ALBERT! HAPPY TO HAVE YOU BACK!” Gordon yelled with ear-splitting cheer the moment Albert walked into the office; and yet, the first thing that caught Albert’s attention was the new face. It was hard to miss; the rest of the young girl at Gordon’s side was clad in an inconspicuous blue suit, but her firetruck red lips and hair were worthy of Diane.

“MY NEW SECRETARY,” Gordon explained, following Albert’s line of sight. “BLUE LILY.”

“Lily Blue,” the girl corrected him with an apologetic smile - probably not for the first time, as it seemed from the slight signs of polite exasperation in her voice. She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Mom was a bit of a flower child.”

Albert ran a quick calculation in his head, but didn’t ask how old the girl was, nor did he comment on how Gordon apparently had a type.

“ANOTHER THING!” Gordon interrupted. “WE MOVED YOUR OFFICE TO THIS FLOOR FOR OUR CONVENIENCE. I GOT THE BOYS TO BRING IN YOUR DESK AND EVERYTHING, SO YOU CAN JUST SETTLE BACK IN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I’VE LEFT SOME IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS FOR YOU TO CATCH UP ON. I WILL SEE YOU LATER.”

“Anything else I should know about?” Albert asked dryly, but Gordon has already walked out of earshot, or perhaps simply elected to ignore the question. Albert, meanwhile, had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t the end of surprises.

Jeffries showed up the next day; Albert thought he was looking a bit twitchy under that bullshit casual facade that wasn’t fooling nobody anymore, but he was probably going to die still keeping it up. He wore a petrol blue suit over nothing but an off-white wifebeater; silver bangles jangled around his wrist as he rifled through the drawers of his desk, muttering curses under his breath. Coop, who never as much as loosened his tie when he was at work, stared at him indignantly. Phil glanced up at him over the rim of his aviator sunglasses.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” he mumbled through an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. “I’m off duty. ‘M practically not here. Just popped in to grab somethin’.” He finally yanked the folder he was searching for out of a jammed pile of papers, and straightened up.

“Alright, kids, be nice to each other when daddy’s away, and don’t forget to fill in your weekly reports. Lil’s gonna brief you later, I’ve gotta go. See ya in a month or so, probably.” He gave them a kind of a half-salute, which only Albert returned, and sauntered out of the room, followed by a glare from Cooper.

 _“Whatcha lookin’ at?”_ Albert asked, mocking the drawl of Jeffries’ voice. Cooper didn’t answer.

“Is it, by any chance, about ‘respect for the institution’, or something of that sort? Because he’s got none of that, and you know it.”

“And doesn’t it bother you?”

“Not in the slightest, actually. It’s almost admirable.” Albert shrugged. “Where’s he off to this time, anyway?” 

“Working a case with agent Desmond, as far as I know.”

“Who’s agent Desmond?” Albert asked automatically; he already felt resigned to being out of the loop.

“He works in the regional office in Portland. Remember the Sheckley case?”

“Vaguely. Alright, one more question: since when do Gordon’s secretaries run briefings?”

Cooper’s frown dissolved in an expression of amusement, because damn, this one was going to be funny.

“Oh, just wait until you see it,” he said with an enigmatic smile.

They were halfway down the corridor when Albert decided that he was going to explode if he didn’t get an answer soon. He put a halting hand on Cooper’s shoulder.

“Excuse me, hold on a second. I don’t think I’m having a stroke after all, but then, what _on Earth_ was that?!”

“Didn’t you read the memo?” Dale countered, and Albert ran a mental checklist of the pile of papers on his desk that he had a look at earlier. There was indeed a note from Gordon, a sheet of typed-out instructions attached… And he sure did remember what he did with them.

“I threw it out,” he admitted.

“Without reading it?” _Oh, the horror!_ Albert rolled his eyes.

“Well,” he said defensively, “I did skim through it. That’s how I knew to throw it out.” Coop gave him a scathing look, because of course _he_ was always on board with all of Gordon’s stupid ideas.

“Five weeks,” Albert mused. “That’s just a little over a month. I’m gone for barely more than a month, and now it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet.”

“Sorry about the desk,” Dale said placatingly.

“While not being able to find my favourite pen is definitely vexing, I would say my biggest concern right now is probably whatever clown act we just watched. And you know what’s the worst part? It’s only 11 am. I dread to think what the rest of the day will look like.”

Dale grinned. “Business as usual, I promise.”

“That is not nearly as comforting as you think,” Albert harrumphed. “Well, I hope we’re not meant to deliver our reports through interpretative dance too, ‘cause that’s not going to happen.”

“It would be interesting to see you try.”

“In your dreams, buddy.”

iii.

“WHAT HAVE YOU GOT FOR US, ALBERT?”

Albert took a folder out of his briefcase, and slowly, ostentatiously shuffled the papers inside.

“Hm, let's see,” he mused. “What do you find in a preschool? Teddy bears, dolls, black robes, goat skulls, sacrificial daggers... and a record player, for playing heavy metal albums backwards.” He looked up from the file to the row of blank faces across the table.

“Haven’t you heard? That's how they brainwash kids into Satan worship. Or is that for teenagers only?”

The statement was met with an expectant, patient silence from Cooper; Gordon, on the other hand, looked as if he was about to say something, but Albert didn’t give him a chance.

“Alright, jokes aside,” he said, and paused for a sigh, and an extra second to think about how to phrase it. “The evidence so far is… inconclusive. We’ve got nothing to support the claims of ritual killings of animals, I would say that bit was completely made up; going by the number of allegations, it would’ve been a regular slaughterhouse, but the carpet was as clean as you can get when you're housing thirty-six toddlers. Speaking of cleaning, no flying on broomsticks, I’m afraid, they’ve only got one mop bucket, and I can’t imagine showing up on that for a black mass. Finally, I am one hundred percent confident there are no secret rooms in the building.”

“I sense there is a ‘but’,” Cooper remarked.

“Well, yes. Now that we’re through with all the nonsense, let’s talk real world. There were fresh traces of blood in the bathroom - it’s no murder scene, it could’ve been a nosebleed, but - and here’s the main ‘but’ - some of the kids have a few bruises on them, and it’s possible they’re not from bumping into furniture or hitting each other with toy trucks.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s too early to draw conclusions, but I would say it’s a strong ‘maybe’ on the account of physical abuse, and a hard ‘no’ on the Satanic conspiracy front. Still, I think we should see the case to an end, regardless of whether it fits our… profile or not.”

“YOU DO THAT!" Gordon nodded. "BUT KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR ANY INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS!”

“You know me,” Albert said with a stiff smile. “Always on the lookout for interesting developments.”

He saw Cooper through the diner’s window, but they didn’t catch eye contact until he was inside, swerving to avoid a waitress heading for the only two other clients in the room with a huge tray piled with steaming plates. Albert shrugged off his coat, threw it over the back of the empty chair next to him, and sat down across the table from Coop.

“You know, I’m usually wary of restaurants where practically _nobody else_ eats,” he commented.

“Oh, but the apple pie here is _magnificent_.”

“Right, you would know. Silly of me to doubt you.”

Dale grinned, and glanced at the wall clock hanging over the counter.

“It’s 7:30 pm,” he said. “I thought you’d take longer, to be honest.”

“I figured Alfie and Peters could take it away from here, at least for today. I’m not the only forensic expert in Philadelphia, am I?”

Dale quirked an eyebrow.

“So, you’re confident that this doesn’t have to stay within the taskforce?”

“Pretty much, yes. And, well, if they see the Devil, we'll make them sign an NDA. Isn't that how it works?”

“Alright, tell me something.” A smile was playing on Cooper’s lips, but his eyes seemed serious. “Are you _really_ certain, or are you just telling it to yourself?”

Albert sighed, and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. _Haven't we had that conversation before?_ , he thought.

“Look - I am not stupid, Coop, nor blind. I’ve worked for Gordon for ten years. I’ve seen my share of weird shit.”

Cooper winced almost imperceptibly. “One might think, then --”

“One might trust me to be able to tell the difference between a real one and somebody’s imagination running wild,” Albert cut in. “My mind’s open enough, thank you very much. But the thing is, you’ve seen it already - most of the special cases go cold. You either find a rational explanation, or they don’t get solved, and all you’re able to say is, ‘well, I’m very sorry that your husband has disappeared for twenty years and then turned up as a corpse in some stranger’s backyard, we think it was aliens’, except you don’t even actually tell them that because of national security. There’s no closure. You don’t help anyone. You don’t even find out much, a lot of the time.” He felt taken aback by the bitterness in his own voice, but it was all true. Cooper frowned, and then did what Albert feared more: he laughed.

“You’re an _idealist,_ ” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, the bastard has a heart. No need to get all excited,” Albert grumbled. They fell silent for a moment, until Cooper spoke again.

“I’m not as... irrational as you think, either.”

“I know, Coop. I just have to keep you in check, you understand. We don't want you ending up like Phil, do we?"

iv.

“Hello, Albert.”

Jeffries walked in as if practising the steps of a very nervous dance, carefully stumbling. He looked around - God knows who else did he expect to meet here at this hour - and set a plastic bag down on the lab bench.

“I need you to do somethin’ for me,” he announced gravely. “And I need you to tell nobody else about it.”

An alarm bell went off loudly in the back of Albert’s head.

“Sure,” he replied coldly. It came off insincere, non-committal, which was very much deliberate. “What is it?”

Phil nodded towards the bag. It looked about half-full of… whatever was in it. There was a faded supermarket logo on it.

“I need an ID, primarily. But anythin’ you can get would be good. Prints, blood, chemical analysis, whatnot, the whole deal.”

Albert put gloves on - even if Phil wasn’t wearing any, but _somebody_ had to act like a professional - and reached for the bag. It was cool to the touch, and damp with condensation. Inside there was another bag filled with ice; something was buried in it, trailing a red stain. The alarm in Albert’s mind rang again. He lifted the contents of the bag up to the light. The ice, which was already beginning to melt, sloshed around, revealing --

“It’s a human finger,” Albert said, Captain fucking Obvious. Phil sniggered without a hint of amusement.

“I hope that’s not the extent of your expertise.”

“It looks quite fresh,” Albert continued, ignoring him. One simple fact after another, calmly. Calmly.

“Yeah.”

“Screw you, Phil.” He glared at Jeffries, as angry as he was puzzled. “I mean, pardon me, but what the fuck? This isn’t even properly labelled. Anyone sees this, you’re in trouble.”

As if reflecting in a mirror, anger flashed in Phil’s eyes, too.

“I am the task force leader, damn it,” he snapped, “and I’m givin’ you an order, so get to work. Didn't ask for your opinions.”

Albert blinked. This might’ve been the first time he’s ever heard Phil play the boss card, and it was jarring. He objected to being talked at in this tone, of course, but he objected even more to the subject of the conversation.

“I’m not taking in evidence off the record,” he said firmly. “...If that’s what you’re getting at. Tell me where you got it from.”

“It’s classified.”

“Bullshit. I have the same access as you.”

“That’s up to me now, don’t you think?”

Albert held Phillip’s stare throughout this ridiculous match. He’d very much like to know why he had to go through some stupid cock fight to do his job properly.

“Just tell me if you cut someone up,” he said.

“Don’t be absurd.” Jeffries ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t have any favours to call in, and Albert’s integrity was implacable. He gave up, and changed his tactic.

“Listen I swear, I’ll get everything in order, I just need this done ASAP, alright? Just do this for me. I'll owe you big time.”

“I’m filing this. Write a label out, at least.”

“Of course. You save my life, Albert,” Jeffries replied, dramatic as always and visibly relieved.

“Sure,” Albert said, again without much conviction.


	8. The Tibetan method

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all wanted some Rosendale? Y'all wanted some Rosendale that I, uh, I now realise I promised in the tags? Well, here you go. Although Diane and Phil make an appearance too, because I can't seem to let go of them.  
> Anyway I'm still busy as hell so this was written on one knee, and it might show, so sorry about that; let's just thank the universe and writing gods for this semi-free weekend and the sudden bout of inspiration I just had.
> 
> P.S. Perceptive readers might notice that sometime in the meantime I have upped the rating from T to M. This is, in fact, NOT due to sexual content, which there will be none here (sorry to disappoint if you counted on it). I just figured I should've maybe done it on the account of all the swearing and murder talk, which my T-rated fics have a lot less of, so let's tentatively draw the line there? Anyway just saying that if they do the do, it's offscreen. (Most of the action here happens offscreen, actually. Oops.)

i.

Diane’s hair was blond, falling down in waves almost to her shoulders. It might have even been her natural, which was certainly shocking, and probably meant something. She wore a ruffled leopard print blouse to match, her nails were painted a lurid green, there was a small bunch of red roses in a vase on her desk, and she was probably the only person Albert has ever met who could look genuinely classy in that sort of get-up.

“You seem to be in a, hm... romantic mood?” he commented, taking in the scene.

“Funny, Cooper said the same thing.”

Albert had good practice in hiding his emotions, including from himself, but Diane was the woman with X-ray eyes, and she seemed to see right through him; at least that was the impression he got from the arch of her eyebrow and the slight tilt of the head.

“I don’t really think he meant anything by it,” she said.

“And how about you?”

“Are any of us immune to the charms of the dashing agent Cooper?” Diane asked philosophically. Albert thought about it for a moment.

“Hmmm… Phil?” he offered. Diane laughed, the strange, momentary tension released; but the ground they were treading on seemed unsafe, and she rushed to change the subject.

“Oh, speaking of,” she said, leaning over her desk and lowering her voice, “I was meaning to ask you -- did he also talk to you about wanting to leave?”

“What, as in… quitting the job?” Albert would’ve been shocked if he cared enough for such a strong reaction; still, he was genuinely surprised. Jeffries was a permanent fixture in the office, even with his prolonged absences; and especially since the Lois Duffy case - which was almost as long as Albert knew him - he was committed to his work to a frankly unhealthy degree. His dedication to Blue Rose bordered on an obsession, and it seemed incomprehensible that he would even contemplate abandoning it. It was unthinkable. Diane shrugged.

“Quitting, transferring, driving that hideous car of his straight into the Delaware, I don’t know, but either way I got an impression he has made up his mind already.”

“Wait, when was that?”

“Last Friday. When you excused yourself with a head cold, and I had the most  _ disastrous _ evening ever.” Diane sighed theatrically. “Do you know how fucking awkward it is when you have to watch your colleague - pardon, your  _ boss _ \- get drunk and almost crying on your shoulder? It was a mess, Albert. I mean, isn’t it always, but that was worse.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I can stand it with you guys. Sometimes I feel like sooner or later each one of you will go completely insane.”

“Please, don’t say that,” Albert said, a little testily. “I plan to keep all my marbles intact, thank you very much.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.” She sounded skeptical.

“Who are the flowers for?” Phillip asked, running his fingers over the bouquet. Diane had to resist the urge to slap his hand away.

“Myself,” she snapped. “Can’t a girl have something nice, just for her own sake?”

“Hm.” He picked one, snapped the stem shorter, and put the flower in the breast pocket of his suit. Diane scowled.

“Don’t you think you should maybe buy me flowers, rather than steal from me? You definitely owe me some form of compensation for sorting out the paperwork from the Maynard case, if not for ruining my weekend.”

“Don’t be so harsh on me, please.” A sweet smile and sad eyes, as if anyone could buy that. Diane certainly didn’t. “Is Cooper in here?”

“He left about three hours ago,” she replied. “Gone on his Caribbean cruise.”

“Are you done with the transcripts?”

“Here,” Diane said, pushing a folder across the desk. “I thought you’d want a look.” She looked at Phil through narrowed eyes, snatching her hand back when he reached for the papers, as if they might catch fire at the touch of his fingers, as if everything he touched was going to warp into something weird and dangerous and awful. And she wondered, which one of them was crazier?

ii.

”...and he said to me,  _ there is death in your face. _ ”

Dalee looked as miserable as anybody does when lying in a hospital bed, although there was something more to it; a sadness in his eyes, like the guilt hurt more than the physical wounds, which was probably true. Albert sighed.

“You’re not... cursed, Coop.” There was an effort to it, the words getting stuck in his throat, too stupid to say out loud, or possibly too false.

“He  _ knew, _ though. And I knew, too. I knew something bad was going to happen.”

Deep in Albert’s mind, there was a small part of him that felt validated, in a way, because he always knew Earle was bad news, didn’t he, but of course he hated to be proven right in such a terrible and tragic way; and clearly there was little point to wondering who has foreseen what and what could have been done about it. It just caused more pain.

“If you keep insisting on upsetting yourself, I’m gonna call the nurse to sedate you,” Albert quipped, and instantly regretted it when he saw the dark look on Cooper’s face. “I’m sorry. You know my bedside manner is somewhat lacking. My clients don’t usually complain, and all that. But listen, I mean it -- it wasn’t your fault. I can imagine how trite and useless that must sound, but it really wasn’t.”

Cooper seemed to remain unconvinced. Albert had an inkling there was something weighing on his heart that he wasn’t quite prepared to share yet, but he didn’t pry. The air itself felt heavy enough as he sat there in silence, eventually crossing another line with his hand resting on Cooper’s shoulder, a tentative foray into personal space, a closeness that was still uncomfortable, like a pair of boots that weren’t broken in yet.

It wasn’t until after Cooper was discharged from the hospital, Albert driving him home, that the other shoe dropped.

“I loved her,” he confessed, out of the blue, such a melodramatic statement even in its simplicity. Albert stared at him, taking his eyes off the road for a pointed look for as long as it was safe, taken aback by the familiarity. He wasn’t sure what prompted this - was there something in his face that would encourage people to share their deepest feelings? He had to get it checked, just in case it could spread.

“I meant Caroline,” Dale explained, unnecessarily, since Albert was quick enough to connect the dots in his mind, and anyway it wasn’t rocket science.

It wasn’t part of the official version, of course, in the end; it stayed between them, as far as Albert was aware. Cooper took responsibility for failing to protect a witness, reasonably saying nothing about anything that might’ve provoked a homicidal outburst of jealousy. And to be honest, between the mystery of Caroline’s disappearance and Windom’s, well,  _ everything, _ nobody even thought to look for such a mundane motive; and Windom himself offered no comment either. He wasn’t even talked about much afterwards, too; not erased from records as such, just… not mentioned, as if he never existed, which was something he would’ve definitely hated to find out, considering the size of his ego. The whole incident sure was a lot to sweep under the rug, but they were experts in that, and life went on, a veil of silence dropped over the more embarrassing horrors.

iii.

“So, what have you been up to? How was the East Coast?”

They were having dinner, which Albert was trying and failing not to call, in his mind, a dinner  _ date _ . They were sitting in Albert’s kitchen, eating the food that he cooked, and now he was making small talk, and not thinking up any improbable scenarios at all, because he was a sensible man. A sensible and lonely man, who hasn’t been socializing much with anyone outside the narrow circle of workmates (those he was still on friendly terms with) for years now, and was thinking about making the best of it as soon as he determined what was actually best.

“It was interesting. My dad got married in Reno,” Cooper said casually in between spoonfuls of homemade chilli. “Oh, and have I told you already that I was working undercover?” 

Albert looked up at him in surprise.

“No, you haven’t,” he replied, trying to process that information, while his imagination confronted the image of Coop sitting in front of him in his crisp clean shirt and striped tie (although he had rolled his sleeves up, a significant concession to informality, which really was a good look on him, Albert had to admit) with what Phil usually wore under the excuse of going incognito. “But now I  _ must _ hear about it.”

“Alright, so, a male prostitute was murdered in San Francisco...”

Albert almost choked on his food, suddenly having a lot more to process, and feeling like he maybe bit off more than he could chew with this conversation. Coop really had a knack for dropping those bombshells on you, all the while maintaining that perfectly innocent look on his face. Albert listened as Dale went on about looking for witnesses in all-male establishments that he was pretty sure he could recognize and name from the descriptions given. At some point he realised he was at the end of his tether, so to speak, as in whatever force made him keep his mouth shut was rapidly dwindling; it was the in-depth observations on the sensory properties of leather that pushed him right up to the edge, and a mention of dancing that finally did it. He imagined Cooper must’ve gotten an entirely different set of comments than he usually got from Diane on their nights out. He said it out loud.

Cooper hesitated, as if suddenly realising that their trust and -- dare he say -- friendship notwithstanding, he has nevertheless said something that could result in all sorts of unpleasantness.

“I hope you don’t think anything… bad of me,” he said slowly, carefully picking out words. “I mean, it  _ was _ one of the most interesting assignments I’ve had yet, is all I meant. Up there with Ozarks, remember that one?” he added, compensating with a nervous laugh. Albert nodded absent-mindedly, thinking how no straight man would ever be so quick to admit to enjoying a night at a gay club and so coy about calling it bad. Now, this wasn’t Albert’s preferred way of coming out of the closet, mainly because his preferred way was to not do it at all. The way he saw it, there were times and places where you could never mention it, and ones where you didn’t need to, because your presence there spoke for itself; but he had to say something to reassure Coop that it  _ really _ was all right with him.

“Coop, I’m gay.”

“Oh.”

Albert thought of what to say in the silence that ensued, but as it was ever his curse, once again his mouth had run ahead of him.

“Well, If you’re looking for an excuse to wear your government funded leather chaps again, I know a place.” He shrugged. “Just saying.”

iv.

When he came out of the shower, he found Cooper sitting cross-legged on the living room sofa, engrossed in some book.

“Three nights ago, I had a dream about a lama,” Cooper announced without looking up, hearing the footsteps behind his back. The footsteps came to a stop.

“What, like the animal?”

“A Buddhist spiritual leader.” He put down the book on the coffee table, next to an empty beer can and a bowl of peanuts. Albert glanced at the cover over Cooper’s shoulder.  _ The people of Tibet, _ it proclaimed in embossed gold lettering.

“In my dream, it was shown to me that by attuning my consciousness to the flow of the Universe, I can reveal hidden truths.”

“The camel man told you that?”

Cooper gave him a withering look. A satisfying prize; most times, he didn’t fall for any attempts to wind him up anymore. Now it was like pulling a lever on a slot machine, and Albert kept trying with the stubbornness of an addict.

“The  _ lama _ , Albert. Don’t be disrespectful.”

“My sincerest apologies to the wisdom and grace of the dream monks.”

Cooper resorted to ignoring the interjections, and went on with his incomprehensible monologue.

“I need to practice letting myself be guided by intuition. The lama told me the knowledge is always already within me, as is the potential to find it.”

“Damn, Coop. Makes you wonder why you spent a year running laps at the academy, if you can just pull all the answers from your magic hat, huh?”

The smile on Cooper’s face was too gleeful for a serene expression of an Enlightened man; rather than that, it suggested he was finding some amusement in winding Albert up, too.

“I was thinking about it, and I would like to try something. Are you familiar with the specifics of the Sanderson case?”

“You could put agent Peters in front of a mirror and he wouldn’t find his own nose if it was painted red, fit for the clown he is. You can guess who did half the work in the end. So yeah, I am neck-deep in specifics.” Albert sighed. “In fact, I am so done with specifics, I just might get on board of whatever vague, esoteric mumbo-jumbo train you got going on. As a form of relaxation, you understand.”

Cooper looked delighted.

“So you will assist me?”

“Sure.”

“Do you have a notepad?”

The coffee table has been turned around by ninety degrees, and the empty can was placed carefully at the far end; satisfied with his work, Cooper sat back down. Albert held five pieces of paper like a full hand of cards for the world’s weirdest game of poker, and he has given up on trying to understand.

“Alright, give me the first name.”

“Pierce,” Albert read out, and passed the note to Cooper, who scrunched it up into a ball, held it for a while with an intensely focused expression on his face, and threw it at the can. It missed by about two inches.

“Next,” he said.

“Uh, Johnson.”

“Johnson,” Cooper repeated quietly, his eyes closed, holding the piece of paper in both hands before throwing it, and missing again. Albert raised an eyebrow.

“It’s only, what, three feet away?”

“Please, don’t distract me,” Cooper said sharply.

“I’m just a little worried about your marksmanship skills,” Albert replied defensively.

“Albert --”

“Alright, alright, I’m shutting up. Park,” he said, handing Cooper the next note. This time, it brushed ever so slightly against the can, and it wobbled, but didn’t fall over.

“Please remind me that we should interview Mrs. Park again. Next.”

“Brown.”

“Brown.” Another miss. “Next.”

“Um, there’s also the kid, so I put him down here too. Sanderson junior.” Cooper nodded, and took the last piece.

“Joseph Sanderson.” It wasn’t even close. “Is that all?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Cooper’s frown deepened.

“Hm. Perhaps the method needs some refinement.”

“Yeah, perhaps,” Albert echoed.


	9. Interludes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What this should've been, considering the pacing so far, was something more about Albert and Coop, and maybe Coop from his DEA days, a gratuitous Denise cameo, and something light-hearted before the tragic finale. I really wanted to do that, for real. But I just couldn't get a grasp on it, the words were absolutely not coming together, so instead it's Diane attempting a guided meditation, Lil having lunch with a colleague, Coop getting a special assignment, and Phil realising he is totally, irreversibly, terminally losing it; four very short scenes that are pretty much just a prologue to the next chapter. Whatever. Anyway, should I change the tags? Cause I think the concept changed on the way and in the present situation it might be unfair to let people possibly expect actual Rosedale-focused content from this. Comments? Thoughts?

i.

Diane sat on the floor of her bedroom, listening to the sounds. The voice on the tape told her to take in her surroundings, so she did, with a smile playing on her lips. It was all quite adorable, she had to admit, even if that was a word she would never say out loud.

Take it in, then.

The sounds: the quiet whirr of the tape deck, underneath the voice. The record playing in the living room, some two decades old psychedelic rock band that already made her feel like she was travelling back in time, if not through the astral plane. The echo of traffic coming in from outside.

The sights: moonlight and streetlights, in silver and gold rays shining through the slit between the curtains, and warm darkness when she closed her eyes again.

The smells: sandalwood incense and a trace of yesterday’s perfume.

She breathed in deeply, and slowly ran her fingers around her in a circle; smooth, cool green silk of the robe that spilled around her like lakewater, and the rough knots of the carpet. Her hands came to rest on her knees. She exhaled.

_ Now, let go. _

She imagined diving, falling and swimming through space. The concept itself was part exhilarating and part terrifying, and so not quite as relaxing as she reckoned it was supposed to be, but it’s the thought that counts, isn't it? It  _ was _ sweet, even if at first it seemed like a very charming attempt at curbing her temper, prompted by last Wednesday, probably, but no, she didn’t actually suspect Cooper to be so subtly cruel. Earnest, then. And sweet. And she definitely needed to unwind -- see, the tape has already progressed to the next step of breathing exercises, and she didn’t manage to empty her mind yet. Fuck, where was she? She chewed on her lip, wondering if she should rewind, as the tape ran almost to the end.

ii.

Lil sat in the cafeteria with Kathy McGill, from the Regional Director’s office. With a finger of her left hand, she absent-mindedly traced abstract patterns along the table’s surface, half-listening to Kathy’s relentless barrage of questions.

“But he’s… weird, right? Like, really weird. That’s what Nora always says.”

Lil shrugged.

“What do you think about him, then? Come on, you can tell me,” Kathy insisted. When it came to prying gossip out of people, she revealed herself to be a tougher and meaner interrogator than any of the agents the Bureau employed. Lil smiled.

“Well, a little bit. But not in a bad way,” she added defensively. “I mean, he’s nice to me, and that’s more than I can say about a lot of people around here.”

Kathy raised an eyebrow, but Lil didn’t let her make a comment.

“And -- I can’t tell you the details,” she said, noticing the glint in Kathy’s eyes with a feeling of small triumph, “but I’m doing some real important work there. I’m not just a plain old secretary, you know.”

Kathy sighed, and shook her head sadly.

“Girl, let me tell you something -- a word of advice from a senior colleague, alright? You’re not, and never will be, a part of the big boys’ club. Don’t imagine too much, spare yourself the disappointment.”

Lil shrugged again, with the indifference of somebody who was convinced they were right, and didn’t feel the need to argue. Seeing she wasn’t getting anywhere on the topic of Gordon Cole, Kathy decided to change the subject, and turned her attention to Lil herself. Without asking, she reached over the table and touched the pendant hanging from Lil’s neck, a blue stone speckled with gold, on a delicate golden chain.

“That’s really pretty,” she said. “Where did you get it from?”

“Lapis lazuli,” Lil replied mechanically. “It was a gift from my mom. It’s supposed to grant you wisdom and protection.”

“Does it really do that?”

“Well, I'm working here,” Lil said, “so make of that what you will.” That sounded a lot like Diane, she realized. It always happened, when she spent more time around someone, she tended to put on their voice, their face, finding herself dancing through scripted gestures. It wasn’t something that upset her to realize. When she was little, she wanted to be an actress.

iii.

Dale sat in the archive room, reading through a file Gordon had told him to check out. It wasn’t a cold case as such, but neither was it under active investigation; left off somewhere between the two, without official closure. That was his job now.

“Diane,” he began, out of habit. He knew she couldn’t hear this one, but it was precisely the fact that he was explicitly forbidden from discussing the details with anybody that made it so vital to address the tape to her, to pretend for a moment there was someone to share the burden of a secret. It was a very particular assignment.

“Diane, I am thinking of what lies beyond the world we know,” he said after a brief pause.

Carefully, studiously, he took a photograph out of the ledger, and brought it up to the light, as if that could reveal something more, another palimpsest image underneath this one, like a message written in invisible ink, like a window opening onto a different view. But it was still the same, a blurry, overexposed shot of two people standing on the porch of a decrepit farmhouse, their faces barely discernible from the distance; and the words scrawled in pencil across the back, in slanted, cramped handwriting:  _ Maynard & Ojeda, 03/16/1985, 6:51 pm _ . He put it back where it was, securing it with a paperclip, and turned the page.

“How can we know when we see it?”

The chair at the table in the archive room was uncomfortable, and the lights overhead were buzzing, ever so slightly, ever so insistently. There were precisely twenty-six steps down the aisle to the door, and the guard on the other side. Cooper glanced up, to where the lights were, and when he looked back down, an afterimage of a yellow-green glow flickered across the papers spread out in front of him. He talked himself through them, pondering on meanings and clues.

“Can we ever truly understand it?”

He felt every part as nervous as quietly excited. A mystery was always invigorating; only the answers were ever fatal. He deleted the recording as soon as he finished it -- it felt wrong to do so, but it was the proper course of action; and then he left the room.

iv.

Phillip was walking down a street, going nowhere in particular, taking a meandering route back to the hotel, just to clear his head, when it caught his eye --

A man in red, an image from a dream. Suddenly, it was as if the world had narrowed to a corridor; tunnel vision, with a dwindling light at the end, a train approaching or missed. It took an effort not to run, not to desperately lunge forward, but he didn’t want to draw too much attention, afraid the man would disappear as soon as he knew Phillip had seen him, afraid that the man knew it already and was only leading him on, afraid, afraid. He followed at a careful distance, like they were connected by a thread he mustn't break, but it had to be pulled tight, too, a perfect equilibrium reached in the chase, too focused on the now to worry about the consequences of reaching his target. What would he even do if he caught up? Would it happen here or in some quiet, empty place? Would that matter? Would he care that people were looking as he would plead with the man or threaten him -- either might be futile but he wouldn’t let go until all his questions were answered. What would he ask? He imagined he wouldn’t even have to say a thing; simply by meeting the man face to face, looking him in the eye, he would’ve proven or condemned himself, and the rest was out of his hands. He imagined the possibility of an ending.

The man stopped in front of a doorway. He turned around --

Phillip blinked as he caught eye contact with a young boy, wearing a bright red hoodie; a stranger eyeing him up warily, and the longer Phillip looked at him, the less he resembled what he thought he had seen. The crowds on the street elbowed their way past him, muttering annoyed apologies or quiet curses, and he stood there, paralyzed. The boy fished out a key hanging from his neck on a piece of string, and vanished behind the door.


	10. Things fall apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, sorry for another hiatus, I watched Re-Animator and had to write a Re-Animator fic, and then I was writing a grant application, so this got put on hold for a bit, but I'm back and very much hoping to finish it soon, because I don't like going into the new year with WIPs. So, chapter ten. The plot thickens! Which by my standards means that there is a little bit of plot, lol. It's not very long but I'm rushing to the end, kind of.

i.

It was like spinning a roulette wheel, every morning at 9 o’clock sharp: what will the ball land on today? Irritable? Distracted? Amiable? Suspicious?

It was putting everybody on edge, but the worst thing was that they knew they were in the dark with no way out. Because the truth, painfully obvious now, was that none of them has ever had a good idea of what was going on in the man’s head; and to say “Gordon is hiding something” was meaningless, almost a logical fallacy, like blaming a heaviness of the heart on gravity. It simply couldn’t have been that and that alone; Gordon was  _ always _ hiding something, and it never before seemed to burden him. Or at least he never let it show.

For reasons of obscure office politics, Lil’s clearance still allowed her less access than Diane had, so she never knew much of what was going on. But she traced the connect-the-dots pictures of calls, meetings and correspondences the way an astrologer might look at the map of the sky, which, in all honesty, was both the level of diligence and the frame of mind expected of everybody who worked for Gordon; and she swore that those thick envelopes the boss was getting from Argentina had everything to do with his moods. And she might have been right about that, because the moods definitely got worse when the envelopes stopped coming on schedule.

It was also Lil who went as Gordon’s assistant to meet the near-mythical figure of their mysterious benefactor from the Air Force -- a dubious privilege that has never befallen Diane, who wasn’t sure if she should be jealous or grateful. Whichever she settled on, she bitterly commented that Lil was probably chosen not just because she was officially Gordon’s secretary, but primarily because with Coop being away on another assignment with the DEA, Lil was the only person available who didn’t have a habit of talking back. And if that was the case, then it clearly meant that Gordon had done something for which he deserved to be told off, and he was trying to wriggle out of the consequences. Albert had to admit he really couldn’t find a flaw in her deductive process. Again, though, you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out; Gordon was always guilty, and they’ve all gotten used to it by now.

There was no use asking; they all dealt in a strictly need-to-know business, and until the boss decided they needed to know, they would never, ever find out. But nobody could keep them from speculating, besides themselves, when they grew bored of asking questions with no answers.

ii.

The farmhouse was painted a dusty pink, blistering and flaking like it had some awful skin disease, revealing the dark wood underneath, eaten through by dry rot. Decay hung over the place like a cloud: the building crumbling to dirt, the scorched, cracked earth, the buzzing of flies, and the smell. They identified one of its main sources pretty fast, even before going inside: a horse carcass in the backyard, black with putrefaction, dissolving, seeping into the ground, its neck twisted, mouth open, a milky white eye fixed on the sky. They circled the house until they came back to the front door, and Dale broke it down. Albert grimaced as the crash rang unbearably loud in the dead stillness.

“Knock, knock?” he hesitated, regaining his wits after the initial shock.

Inside, the stench was just as terrible, worse maybe, for the lack of ventilation, and it came from the living room. The corpse on the couch was falling apart beyond recognition, becoming one with the trash that littered the place, but one detail stood out to Albert as he moved closer to examine it: the left hand, hanging off the side of the couch, only had four fingers on it. The vague, directionless sense of suspicion and unease that accompanied Albert since they left Philadelphia solidified into a theory. It could have been a coincidence, and he was damn sure it wasn’t.

“Coop?” he asked, turning around. “What are we doing here?”

Cooper gave him an odd look, and Albert wondered if it was more confused or wary, and the thought scared him, because that kind of paranoia was a step down a very slippery slope. The question came out awkward anyway, because it wasn’t the one he was really asking. What it stood for was,  _ why are we here now? _ And:  _ the house was locked and the porch was covered in dust. We are the first ones to find the body, but you didn’t even act surprised. You didn’t even bother ringing the doorbell. _ And:  _ this person has been dead for about a week and a half, which means they were still alive when a piece of their body landed on my desk. But I’m not sure if I can talk about that, even though you seem to know more than me. _ And the one it all came down to:  _ why can’t I know more? I still hate being kept in the dark, and it hurts far more when coming from you. _

“We’re looking for something that’s been overlooked before,” Cooper replied, infuriatingly enigmatic.

“I’ll tell you what’s been overlooked,” Albert snapped back. “My damn briefing.”

“I’m sorry.” Cooper looked at him with those pretty eyes of his, the way he did sometimes, a sad puppy stare at first glance, hard and implacable upon closer inspection, and you knew you weren’t getting past him. “We’re looking for something hidden. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it must be here.”

“You had a dream about it?”

“Not yet,” Cooper replied, dead serious. “Just a suspicion, for now.” He glanced at the dead body on the couch.

“Oh, I would also like you to do an autopsy. But first, we’ll search the house.”

iii.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Albert leaned against the door frame, with his arms folded across his chest and a stern expression on his face. Cooper seemed taken aback, almost offended at first, but he dropped the pretense of innocence quickly. He was not a liar. And the trouble with people who were not liars was that they usually mastered the art of omission, the evasions, the going quiet, the substitute topic, the misdirection. But Albert was not an interrogator, and that wasn’t what he was doing there. His attempt to see through Cooper’s excuses was purely friendly in nature.

“If this is about Maynard’s farm --”

Maynard’s farm. The body, now in the morgue, determined cause of death: heart attack. A stash of crack under a loose floorboard: something hidden, exhibit A. Something hidden, exhibit B: a duffel bag full of cash in the back of the bedroom closet. Something not quite so hidden, that has nevertheless elicited the most triumphant reaction from Coop: a tin box full of postcards. Some were older, some newer, but all of them depicted various shots of the Seattle skyline, and they were all written out with no words, just a string of numbers, slightly different every time. It seemed to mean something to Cooper, but as he said then, he was not at liberty to reveal any details, and he repeated it now. But that wasn’t it. Albert unfolded his arms, and put up a hand to stop him.

“No, it’s not -- it’s not about that. I mean, I understand it’s out of your hands, and it’s something I should take up with Gordon, which I might do eventually, but it’s not what I’m talking about. There’s something else, isn’t there?”

There was a longer pause, and then Cooper finally, reluctantly, caved in. He took a cassette out of a locked drawer, and put it in the tape deck. Albert heard a familiar, detestable voice. The poetry was terrible, but the intent behind it was worse.

“When and how did you get this?”

“It came by post last week,” Cooper explained.

“Last week.”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

Albert shook his head. “Try again.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Cooper apologised.

“Does Gordon know?”

“Yes.”

“Diane?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Good. She would’ve murdered you with her bare hands if you didn’t.”

“Listen,” Cooper said placatingly, “I have checked with the hospital, and he’s safely locked up. Everything’s fine.”

“Still, getting vague death threats from a homicidal maniac with a grudge is something you might consider sharing with your partner. Remember that for next time.”

iv.

The second time Phillip Jeffries disappeared has somehow, paradoxically, felt more final. Until then, there was still hope that he was just laying low, afraid of blowing his cover, but still on the case, perhaps on the brink of a long-awaited breakthrough. A hope, even, that he was lounging on a beach somewhere, served drinks in halved coconuts by dark, handsome young men, paid with the Bureau’s money. There was frustration and worry but there was hope, right up to the moment when Jeffries stumbled into the office, for what was indisputably going to be the last time.

It was Gordon who said that, actually, not long afterwards, officially declaring Jeffries missing, presumed dead, closing the short-lived investigation into his disappearance. It was soon, too soon, so soon he must’ve known something that didn’t make it into the speech. He did later take Cooper for a private talk; Albert and Diane, left behind, reached a mutual agreement that they needed a drink.

She brought her glass up to the light, and Albert immediately cut in.

“No tearful eulogies, please. I don’t think I can stomach another one.”

Diane raised an eyebrow.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I do hope his soul finds peace, if that’s possible.”

“I’m not as excellent a judge of character as you,” Albert retorted dryly, “but I was always under the impression that if Phillip Jeffries ever found peace, he would turn around and saunter off in the opposite direction.”

Diane didn’t offer a comment on that.

“You know who I feel really bad for?” she asked after a pause. “Lil.”

“Lil? Why?” Albert would have never guessed it. Diane started counting off on her fingers.

“She’s the youngest. Hasn’t been here long. Not exactly indispensable - I mean, no offense, but half the things Gordon has her doing barely make sense to him. So I’ve told her, time and time again, to get the fuck out, the sooner the better, for her own good. And she’s still here. Another lost cause.”

“Is that how you think of us?”

“I think… I think what it comes down to, at this point, is that we’re just hanging around to see how it all ends.”

Albert wasn’t convinced. “I’m not really so sure --”

“No, you too. Whether we fail or succeed, whatever those might even mean - it’s this… “slow down driving past a car crash to get a good look” mentality, and we’ve all got it.”

“I’d like to think my motivations are somewhat loftier,” Albert replied, and Diane gave him a doubtful look. “What about you, though? You say “we”, but --”

She would’ve never forgiven him if he said “you’re just a secretary”, and probably would’ve hit him, too; but the point stood. “Formally, you’re not Blue Rose.”

“No, but I’m afraid that doesn’t make me free of sick curiosity. It just means that I didn’t build my entire career out of it.”

“Hmph.”

“Besides, I’ve grown kind of attached to you guys. I know, it’s awful, but I can’t help it.” She attempted the toast again. “To lost causes,” she said. They clinked their glasses together.

“Lost causes. Yeah, that’s fair.”


	11. Lost and unfound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made myself a lil emotional writing this; I hope it feels similar to you.
> 
> Anybody else got the impression that when Albert pulled Gordon out of that vortex in TPTR, it wasn't the first time this happened? Because I did.
> 
> The last segment is actually verbatim a dream I had after writing this fic before going to sleep, so thanks, brain! Managed to work it in.

i.

The lights were low, pulsating in a lulling, slow rhythm between blue and gold. The music droned on maudlin, but it wasn’t bad. The beer was serviceable. All around people were generally enjoying themselves. Albert’s head throbbed with a dull ache, there was a tightness in his gut and an acrid aftertaste in his mouth. He looked down at the table, the grain of wood swimming in his peripheral vision, and Harry’s hands.

“I keep thinking,” Harry said, “if it was really him that came back. I don’t pretend to understand any of it, but… Coop wouldn’t leave like that, would he?”

“He did the first time around,” Albert replied bitterly. To him, stuck in Philadelphia at the time, it was as if Coop never came back, however briefly; and he left without a goodbye. All Albert had was a memory, fresh like a wound: a morning call, Harry’s voice, tired after a sleepless night in the woods, cracking, chipped at the edges like something that’s been knocked around. Another call, later, cautious hope. And then another, confusion and fear. A year later, it was still hard to tell which one hurt the most.

“We’ll keep looking for him,” he said. Really, though? He didn’t remember looking for Jeffries too much. And did anyone even mention Chet since Laura Palmer died?

They never did anything but watch, that was the problem. They just sat back and took notes as disaster after disaster unfolded before their eyes. When Earle vanished in the middle of an investigation, and came back rambling about darkness and fear, they waited to see what he'd do next. When Jeffries started talking about seeing things, they nodded and asked for details, and built whole cases on them. And Desmond - damn, it should’ve been a much bigger deal. Sure, he was employed by the Portland office, sure, his involvement with them was vague, unspecified and half-unofficial, but despite it being on the other side of the country, Deer Meadow was their turf. Lil wore a blue rose at Chet’s briefing. He was their responsibility. And while his disappearance came as a surprise, an embarrassing incident promptly swept under the rug, it meant that they were aware of the risks when Cooper took over from him, and still they let him go. Kept a keen eye on him as he waltzed into this hellhole that swallowed him whole.

Diane has left because she didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore, and Albert could understand that sentiment well enough. But on some deeper level, he felt he couldn’t leave until he achieved some sort of redemption, and there was just one thing to do: find out what happened to Cooper, find him, undo at least that one mistake. A possibility of closure, and a fantasy of moving on.

He saw Harry take something out of his pocket, and push it across the table. An embroidered patch, a sword and a tree.

“Bookhouse Boys badge,” Harry explained. “It belonged to Cooper, we found it in his things, back then. I figured you should have it.”

He saw Albert’s face rearrange into an expression of contempt.

“You’re one of us too, you know,” he added.

Albert felt anger boiling in his veins, like hot water.  _ How dare he. How dare he talk about it like it’s some sort of honour, and not what it really is, a stupid game played by men who have never outgrown their boy scout days, and only swapped the old games for more dangerous ones, and it killed his partner, his friend, a man he loved. _

“No, I’m not,” he spat. “So once we find him, after whatever this town did to him, you can give him his fucking merit badge yourself.”

He rose, taking his coat off the back of the seat.

ii.

There were just the two of them now. They didn’t even take Gordon’s chauffeur on this trip; all the nonsense Albert had to hear on their journey was meant for his ears only. This also meant that it fell down on him to drive in circles around the backwoods roads, with Gordon staring out of the passenger’s side window and occasionally issuing single-word commands. Left. U-turn. Ahead. Albert was certain they were lost, in more ways than one, in every possible way. He didn’t know what they were looking for. Oh, he was told, this time, finally privy to a treasure trove of absurd secrets; it just didn’t make much sense, and he kept reminding himself that he wasn’t yet desperate enough to give it credence. He had to keep reminding himself that, insistently, and it kept getting harder.

“I THINK WE’RE CLOSE,” Gordon announced.

In the old days, when Albert was sometimes forced to go on such roadtrips with Phil, they often had coordinates, sent in from their Air Force man, places that pinged on the colonel’s UFO radar. All they had now was Gordon’s intuition. Was that what Cooper had to work with on every assignment? Poor man.

He tried not to think about Cooper. He failed. He has been explicitly instructed to think about Cooper during this mission, for reasons of some psychic resonance bullshit. He was succeeding in thinking about Cooper spectacularly. If he was to be some sort of guiding beacon, he was a goddamn lighthouse.

“HERE.”

He stopped the car on the side of the empty road. The place looked much the same as any other place around here, Albert could’ve sworn they drove past it twice already, but right now Gordon seemed absolutely certain about it. Albert got out of the car after him, and buttoned up his coat against the cold wind that rustled in the branches of the tall trees, surrounding them like walls of a labyrinth. He heard the distant call of an unidentified bird. He saw Gordon draw his gun, a heavy-looking revolver he started carrying a while back, which Albert was sure belonged to Jeffries once; for the first time, he felt more uneasy than morally superior about being unarmed himself. He wasn’t ready to change that yet, though. It was just this place that was getting to him, and his brain unconsciously mirroring Gordon’s wariness. Maybe the woods looked too much like Twin Peaks. All forests looked the same to him. The forest around Twin Peaks was called Ghostwood. There were no ghosts, except in the mind, but those were bad enough. He dropped the car keys into his pocket and followed Gordon down a narrow footpath, careful not to trip on the roots criss-crossing it like gnarled veins.

They walked for about half an hour -- he knew because he kept checking his watch every now and then -- until they saw it. A hollow concrete shell, its windows cracked and roof collapsed, the walls marked with streaks of soot. An old dirt road, leading to it from the opposite side to the one they came from, was overgrown with weeds, but the ground around the building itself was barren, not even a blade of grass or a patch of moss, just dry, greyish soil. They circled the structure cautiously, looking inside, once thinking they saw a shadow of movement, but it was empty, no squatters and no wild animals either. Gordon stood in the centre of the driveway, and looked up to the sky.

“Well, it looks like absolutely nothing to me,” Albert concluded, breaking the silence. Gordon raised his hand, shushing him, and pointed to something in front of him. Albert frowned. He saw trees. He saw more trees. He saw Gordon’s outstretched hand become transparent. He blinked. Gordon took a careful step, and his silhouette flickered, on and off, hazy, see-through, then there again, solid and real, another step, insubstantial, like a ghost --

For a moment, Albert stood there frozen in confusion and shock. This was maybe one degree stranger than anything he’s seen so far, or maybe not even that, but it was new. He didn’t know what was happening, but suddenly he understood, he understood without knowing. He lunged forwards, grabbed Gordon and pulled him back, with his arms around him, gripping tight, his fingers leaving deep creases in the material of Gordon’s jacket.

“Don’t you dare,” he breathed, close to Gordon’s face. His head spun, he stumbled and crossed a line after line. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me alone. Do you hear me? You don’t get to go anywhere.”

iii.

“The number you are trying to reach does not exist,” said the recorded voice, robotically upbeat in a most annoying way. Albert slammed down the receiver. No, he didn’t really think that would work. He swore under his breath, cursing himself, cursing the whole damn world, but mainly cursing Phillip Jeffries.

“Fuck. Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ ”

At least now he knew that wherever Jeffries has been calling from, he wasn’t haunting his old apartment. As if that was ever an option that Albert considered. He idly wondered if a ghost could even use a phone. Apparently, since Jeffries has been officially dead for years, and making calls as if nothing has happened as recently as last week. And now another man was dead, almost definitely for real and for good, and it was Albert’s fault.

He shouldn’t have even found out, probably. But ever since the Blue Rose task force has shrunk so dramatically, Gordon has been using him as some sort of aide as well as personal confidant; and while Albert hasn’t yet stooped so low as to do secretary work for the boss, certain pieces of information occasionally passed through his hands that he would never have heard of before. He had often felt that he suffered for knowing too little; now he suffered for knowing too much, and yet it still wasn’t enough.

He vaguely remembered Jeffries appearing in his dreams the night before. He remembered scraps of images, a hand, an eye, a crooked smile left after the Chesire cat had disappeared in a cloud of nicotine smoke, and they didn’t add up to a whole, and the meaning escaped him. It didn’t matter anyway -- it wasn’t the real man after all, merely an echo, an afterimage, the Platonic ideal of a slippery bastard, and it offered no knowledge, no explanations. But maybe that was for the better. No nightly visitations, no ghostly communications, no prophetic dreams; what passed for cold, hard reality in his waking life was insane enough.

iv.

Diane stood with her back to him. Her hair was black, a neat bob, smooth and round, like a chess piece head, screwed onto a wrong body, above a long white dress with a ruffled collar.

"This is not your dream," said her voice, hers and not hers, familiar but wrong. She turned around to look at him and he saw -- it was like her face had been scooped out, it was like a geode, soft and pinkish white, subtly iridescent, like mother of pearl, an empty womb, nestling air and smoke.

He backed away and looked out of the window, experiencing something he never had before, a dizzying vertigo. The rooftops of an unfamiliar city stretched impossibly far below; he closed his eyes but the view was already seared into his mind so hot it was glowing in afterimages, even as he retreated closer to the centre of the room, the spinal axis he imagined running through the whole building, tethering it to solid ground.

"This is not your dream," Diane echoed in the cavern of her head.

"I know," Albert replied, much to his surprise; and that was when he knew, with sudden clarity, crisp and cold and unquestionable, that something was deeply wrong.

The room solidified around him, no longer the background noise of his subconscious; now he was seeing it, properly, with every detail, and everything he touched felt real. He found himself aware, thinking about what to say next, no longer just a passenger in an actor's body, moving and talking out of a script, unknown but obvious, and it startled him, like he lost his footing. He swallowed hard, tasting something disgusting on his tongue and chewing it like a gum that's almost lost its flavour, sucking it for the last drop of fading confidence.

"Whose dream is it, then?" he asked, the irony flaking off his voice as it trembled ever so slightly. "Dale’s? Phil’s? Gordon’s?" He was  _ having dreams _ now, he realized, like he's caught a dangerous disease. The paper-thin brave mask was all he had, while Diane didn't even have a face. When she spoke, she sounded small, little-girl scared. She sounded distant, miles away, she sounded as if she was speaking through a phone and the connection was breaking up.

"It's mine," she said. "It's me. Don't you see?" The voice piped up higher, desperate, sharp-edged like a shard of a broken mirror. "Don't you see? It's me. It's me." She spluttered like a broken record, the sound wasn't human, and it was her, he knew that beyond certainty. "It's me."

"Why have you left?" Albert asked, before he could stop himself, the words hurtful and accusing, pain and resentment. Was he jealous of the decision he couldn't bring himself to make? A gambling addict at the slot machine, pulling the lever again and again, can't leave before he wins it all back, while she left, with all she's lost, in her own dream she didn't even have a face, the loss is a gaping wound she would never be free of, but maybe at least she'll stop digging, removing chunks of herself in a hope to reach a hidden treasure.

"I'm sorry," she said, sullen amusement reverberating along the frayed threads of her voice, "it will all make sense when you're older." And he knew it to be true.

"You better go now,” she told him. “I just wanted someone to see me."

But it wasn’t until after a long while after that he finally woke up, feeling no more rested than he was before he went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, y'all! Final chapter! I'm free! EXTREME thanks to the three of you commenting on this, without you I possibly would've dropped this half a year ago. xoxo


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